Old customs, then a second day for just the two of them
Stamatis & Dorota – Secret Valley
The day
Dorota got ready at a villa near Secret Valley and Stamatis at his parents’ house, and the two mornings could not have been less alike. Hers was friends, noise and something close to a party before the party. His was family — the house filling up, food coming out, everybody talking over everybody else.
Both of those are worth filming properly and for different reasons. A room full of friends gives you laughter and movement and things nobody would repeat if you asked them to. A family house gives you the older generation in the frame, and the quiet moments that happen when a father and a son are briefly in the same room with nothing to do.
Stamatis’s morning ran to the old customs — the zosmata and the shaving of the groom, which turn getting dressed into a ceremony of its own, with the room crowded and the music going and everyone with an opinion. These are the parts of a Cypriot wedding that photograph well and film better, because they have their own rhythm and you can see it coming.
The service was at the church of Agios Georgios, a few minutes from Secret Valley, and afterwards everyone moved down into the valley for the reception.
The reception area had been decorated beautifully, and the golf course does something no hotel ballroom can: it puts you in a valley with the light coming down the slopes and rock formations on the skyline. The party ran from there.
The day, in scenes
Full-day coverage
Dorota’s villa near Secret Valley
Friends, music, and a morning that behaved more like an evening.
Stamatis at his parents’ house
The house filling with family, food already coming out.
The zosmata and the shaving
The old customs, a crowded room, and everyone with an opinion.
Agios Georgios church
The service, filmed from fixed positions with mics on the celebrant and groom.
Down into the valley
Secret Valley, and a reception area decorated to within an inch of its life.
Dinner and speeches
Long light down the slopes, three angles, cut for the reactions.
The party
Drone up once over the lit valley, then back down among it.
And then a second day, just for them
A wedding day belongs to everyone in it. However well you film it, the couple spend most of it being pulled between people who love them. So we took a second day and drove Stamatis and Dorota around the island with no schedule and no guests.
We filmed at the old bridge at Trozena, inland where the valleys go green and quiet, and then out to the sea and the cliffs on the coast. No timetable, no two hundred people waiting, nobody needing them anywhere. Just the two of them, a car, and the whole island to choose from.
It is the footage they will use when they want to show someone what the two of them look like together, rather than what their wedding looked like. If you are considering it, the honest advice is that it works best a day or two after the wedding rather than months later, while the dress is still pressed and the feeling is still in the room.
Filming at Agios Georgios and Secret Valley
Secret Valley sits at Ha Potami in Kouklia, eighteen kilometres east of Paphos and just off the A6, which makes it one of the easiest venues in the district for guests arriving from either Paphos or Limassol and about fifteen minutes from the airport. The course was built in 1996 and cuts through a valley of mature trees and natural rock formations, and the clubhouse terrace and function lawn are where the weddings happen.
For filming, the valley is the whole story. It gives you a horizon of rock and slope rather than a car park or a neighbouring hotel, and it means the light behaves differently from a coastal venue — the valley floor goes into shade while the slopes above are still lit, so you get a long warm band above the party for a good while after you would have lost the light on a beach. Plan portraits for that window rather than for a fixed clock time.
Two things worth knowing. It is genuinely good drone country, with open ground and rock formations that give an aerial something to be about, though that needs agreeing with the resort in advance. And Petra tou Romiou is fifteen minutes down the road — if you are getting married here and you want the couple’s portraits somewhere that means something on this coast, you have Aphrodite’s own beach almost next door.
Getting married at Agios Georgios Church & Secret Valley, Kouklia?
We know this venue — where the light falls, where the quiet corners are, and how the evening runs. Tell us your date and we'll come back within 24 hours.
Check your dateMore films
Chad & Lucie – Ktima Alassos
Ktima Alassos, Paphos · 2026
saxophone at sunset, fireworks after dark
Fanni & Balint – Szeged Hungary
Liget Rezidencia · 2026
A cathedral ceremony, then a private estate for the weekend
Orestis & Andria – Ayios Photios Statos
Ayios Photios Church, Statos · 2025
Year
2023
Location
Agios Georgios Church & Secret Valley, Kouklia