The day

Andria got ready at her parents’ house in Anarita and Orestis at their home in Paphos, and then everybody drove up into the mountains. Statos–Agios Photios sits at nine hundred and thirteen metres — the highest village in the Paphos district, thirty-odd kilometres and a long climb from the coast, with walnut trees down every street and vineyards running away on all sides.

A Cypriot wedding begins at home, and that is where the best of the filming happens. Two houses, two families, the same rituals running in parallel, everyone dressed and nervous and being teased about it. [One moment from the morning — who was doing the dressing, what the music was, something that was said.]

The service was at Ayios Photios church. Orthodox ceremonies have a shape you can film properly if you know it — the crowning, the circling of the altar, the moment where the whole congregation leans in — and you get exactly one chance at each of them, so nothing moves once the priest begins.

Then out into the square, which is what a village wedding really means. Long tables, the whole community rather than a guest list, live music that didn’t stop, and food that kept arriving. The dancing ran until the early hours of the morning. [One moment from the night.]