Mechaela & Ben

Mechaela and Ben went entirely white. Not ivory, not cream — white, from the flowers banked along the aisle to the linens, the chairs and the towering cake. Against the bare volcanic rock and the blue of the caldera it read as sharp rather than soft, which is exactly what they wanted.

They said their vows on the terrace at Venetsanos, with the little whitewashed chapel and the water below them, and walked back out through a storm of petals thrown by everyone they had brought with them. Lunch followed under the pergola — one long table, glass, candles and the caldera doing the rest.

The day carried on into the evening at Madame Sousou, and nobody was in a hurry for it to end.