Ultimate Guide to Planning a Wedding in Greece: Real Tips And Costs From Our Wedding

As someone that’s traveled extensively around Greece (many many months of travel), it was only fitting that we chose Greece to be our wedding destination! It was a midway point for many of our guests and easily one of the most beautiful venues you can choose. Greece has and always will be my favorite country in Europe because of its incredible views, stunning architecture, delicious food, and friendly people.

We spent over a year planning our Greek wedding and we ultimately settled on the beautiful island of Milos. We also did a pre-wedding party two days before the actual event, as well as island hopping after the wedding. Greece is an amazing destination wedding because you don’t need to convince people to make it happen. Everyone has Greece on their bucket lists and you can combine a wedding in the Greek islands with visiting Athens, other islands in Greece, or even other countries in Europe.

If you’re brainstorming about planning your own wedding in Greece, this is the blog post for you. In this post, I’ll go over anything and everything there is to know about planning a wedding in Greece. I will share my costs without any filter, as well as my personal experiences getting it organized. This is going to be a blunt, crass, and straight to the point blog post with loads of amazing photos. If that is your style too, you’ve come to the right place!

Why Greece is the perfect Destination Wedding Location?

Let’s be honest — Greece pretty much sells itself. You don’t need to twist anyone’s arm to get them to come to the Greek islands. Everyone and their mother has Greece on their bucket list, so planning a wedding here instantly becomes less about convincing people to come and more about coordinating flights and ferry timetables. That’s a much better problem to have.

For us, it was an easy choice. After spending months (actually years) traveling all around this beautiful country, I can confidently say there’s no better backdrop for a wedding than Greece. The sunsets hit different here. The views — think dramatic cliffs, turquoise waters, and sugar-cube villages — make you feel like you’re in a painting. And don’t even get me started on the food. You could serve your guests a “basic” Greek dinner and they’d still think it’s the best meal they’ve ever had at a wedding.

Beyond the obvious beauty, Greece offers variety. Want a small elopement in a whitewashed chapel? Done. A blowout beach bash until 5 a.m.? Also doable. Mountains, vineyards, seaside tavernas, historic ruins — take your pick. You can make your wedding feel like a romantic escape, a vacation for your guests, and a full-blown party all in one.

And here’s the underrated truth: Greece is still way more affordable than most other European countries for weddings. Sure, once you slap the word “wedding” on anything, the prices triple — but even then, it’s a far better value than, say, Italy or France. You get world-class scenery, top-tier food, and that laid-back Greek hospitality… without completely nuking your savings account (well, maybe just partially).

So yeah — if you’re dreaming of a destination wedding, Greece isn’t just a pretty choice. It’s the smart one, too.

What are the top places to get married in Greece?

Greece is literally littered with breathtaking spot after breathtaking spot. Whether you’re traveling through the northern mountain ranges, or to the cosmopolitan Athens riviera, or the iconic Cycladic islands, there’s something for everyone in Greece.

As I’m not an expert on planning Greek weddings, I can only speak from my own wedding research and my extensive travel through Greece. We always knew we wanted to get married in the Cycladic islands. I’ve traveled all over Greece and these are the places I keep coming back to time and time again. Something about the Greek islands just does it for me and I’m not complaining. I’ve been to almost all the Cycladic islands after all!

I’ve spent months in Athens and while I love the city and its surrounding areas, I just didn’t think it had that wow effect that the Greek islands provide for my guests. Most of our guests had never even been to Greece before so I couldn’t think of anything more iconic than a wedding overlooking the Aegean coupled with the iconic Cycladic white houses.

How we chose the Cyclades Islands

Within the Cyclades, we had countless options to choose from. We knew right away that we wanted to avoid Mykonos and Santorini. Mykonos was beautiful to visit during COVID as the swarms were not traveling. However, in normal times, Mykonos is a complete disaster of a place to travel during the summers. It’s at least 2x more expensive than other islands and it has nothing else to offer besides beach clubs and overpriced restaurants.

Santorini is another ultra popular Cycladic island that is on everyone’s bucket list to visit. Having also traveled to Santorini during COVID and loved it, I know the reality during normal times is entirely different. It’s 2-3x the price of other places in Greece and is insanely packed with tourists. I didn’t want to spend a fortune on my wedding so these were simply off the list.

I also wanted an island that had an airport. While I love taking the Greek ferries, I wanted to offer my guests the option to take a flight if they wanted. This essentially left a few islands left:

• Milos
• Paros
• Naxos
• Astypalaia (technically not part of the Cyclades but is every bit a Cycladic island)

We looked at some options on Tinos island as well because of its proximity to Athens and Mykonos but I was not familiar with the island enough to really make a decision. That left essentially Milso, Naxos, and Paros. We browsed through countless venues on all of these islands, some which are incredibly stunning.

How we chose Milos Island

We wanted a venue with a view overlooking the sea and a venue big enough for 70-80 people as that was our estimated headcount. This narrowed the options down further and we had a handful of options left. Ultimately, we settled on Kipos Cafe in Milos Island. We had been to Milos once before and absolutely loved it. We also saw numerous Instagram photos and videos of this venue and knew it had potential.

Planning a big fat Greek wedding

As I’ve only planned one wedding in my life, I can only speak from the experience of a single wedding. However, I suspect if you’re reading this, this first hand experience is probably exactly what you want!

First step – Choose a wedding planner

Like any wedding, I suspect the first step would be to choose your wedding planner! As this is a destination wedding, you need experts on the Ground in Greece that are able to connect with the vendors, understand the market, and can organize everything for you. We chatted with a few wedding planners and ultimately settled on one that was highly rated. I won’t name them publicly but please feel free to reach out if you need ideas!

My main advice to you for wedding planners is to make sure you have some sort of connection with them as you’ll be working and talking to them countless times until the wedding. In addition, if they have experience with the venue you choose, that is an absolute game changer as on the ground experience can never be replaced. The Greek islands cover a huge area so not every wedding planner will have experience on the island of your choice. However, I firmly believe on the ground experience really makes a difference.

Greek Wedding Costs

Finally, we go to the meat of it all with just how much does a wedding in Greece cost? As you can expect, weddings are never cheap and almost always run over the estimated budget your wedding planner tells you. This is not unique to Greece but everywhere in the world! I would budget at least 15-25% over what the wedding planner estimates for you.

Our Greek wedding was in the beautiful island of Milos within the Cyclades island chain. Our venue was one of the most beautiful places we saw and from the Instagram photos, we were automatically hooked.

Payment in Greece in Cash

Greece is still a bit old school in its ways (which I can appreciate) as far as avoiding tax payments. The VAT in Greece is a monstrous 24% and all the wedding vendors around will encourage you to make payment for everything with cash to avoid paying VAT. They will tell you to transfer a small deposit (5-10%) of the cost to get it on the books and this DOES include VAT. You’ll pay the rest in cash to avoid VAT on the remaining 90-95%.

It might be a big sketchy for some people, but I have no problem saving 24% of the costs. I paid for everything in cash that I could in the end. This meant that I brought tens of thousands of Euros to Greece before the wedding to make these payments.

If you’re coming from the US or somewhere outside of the EU, I would get the cash converted beforehand. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to take out tens of thousands of Euros at an ATM in Greece. My bank for example, only allows me to withdraw $2,000 USD a day from an ATM.

How much did we pay for our Greek wedding?

All expenses are in Euros. Do not bring US Dollars because it is useless here.

I will also break down in detail the individual categories.

All in all, we paid about 40,000 Euros for our wedding of 70 people. I think this is quite a decent price even as wedding costs have skyrocketed in Greece as well (nowhere near as much as in the US however).

This price wouldn’t be that different if we had 100 people either because any incremental guest would just be an additional plate and open bar which was 150 Euros per person.

Now I will break down the costs individually to give you an idea of what it’s all about in a Greece wedding!

Wedding Planner

A wedding planner in Greece is a must if you’re planning a destination wedding. You don’t know what you’re doing and you certainly will need some Greek knowledge to get things moving.

Almost all the wedding planners are in Athens so you’ll also need to pay for their transportation and lodging when they come for the day of onsite planning.

The wedding planner helped facilitate everything and brought our ideas to life. We made it easy for them and kept our wedding theme simple. The venue is already so beautiful that you didn’t need to have elaborate flowers or decorations. This is the Greek islands after all so simply let the natural beauty speak for itself. We showed them another minimalist style wedding that we loved which used olive branches as the main decor and that was pretty much it.

In total, we paid about €5,000 for the wedding planner from beginning to end. We paid an additional €400 for their ferry ticket, accommodation, and rental car where they spent two nights in Milos preparing and coordinating our wedding.

Total cost for wedding planner: €5000 + €400 = €5,400

Wedding Venue

The largest expense is the wedding venue. Our wedding planner showed us numerous wedding venues all throughout the Greek islands. We pretty much already knew which one we wanted but decided to see what else was out there.

In the end, we settled on the beautiful Kipos Cafe in Milos for our wedding. This venue was located 20 minutes outside of the main Plaka area which meant we were able to stay late into the night. Although I am American, my partner is not and the though to ending a venue before midnight like everyone does in the US is laughable to her.

At Kipos, the party goes until 5am if you want it to which is exactly what we did.

For Kipos, we paid €4,500 to book out the venue. This is just the fee to reserve the venue without anything included. I think this probably just pays for the staff, electricity, water, and other minor things.

For the food menu, we wanted to do it family style with Greek food. We are in Greece after all! We chose a variety of Greek dishes like Greek salads, Tzatziki, Tirokafteri, fava, breads, whole fish, octopus, lamb chops, chicken souvlaki, and more. Kipos happily obliged with our menu and even offered a free tasting to try their food which we did a year before the wedding. For this, we paid €95 per person.

No wedding is complete without an open bar so we made sure we had an open bar for the whole night with all drinks available. We even brought a few bottles of alcohol from our culture which we set up as a “shot bar” which Kipos had no issues with. For the open bar, we paid €50 per person.

Venue total: €4,500 + €6,550 + €3,450 + €450 (VAT) = €15,000

Sound and Lighting

Sound and lighting is a must have for any wedding venue. As Milos is a small island, we only had one company to choose from and they dictate the price. We kept it simply with fairy lights above the dinner area and the dance floors and this alone was €3,200! I’m sure you can buy these cheap fair lights for €300.

We also set up a wooden stage that was slightly elevated (about 10 centimeters) for the ceremony. The ceremony was done at the Kipos parking lot which is slightly rocky. We thought it would be a good idea to set up a wooden stage so women with heels wouldn’t have to be uncomfortable.

Long story short, the wedding planners completely messed this up and ordered a wooden platform that was too small for the amount of guests we had. we only noticed it the day before the wedding at our rehearsal (thank god we did a rehearsal). We paid €750 for this small wooden platform which turned out to be a complete waste of money.

I must say that the sound and lighting bucket was the biggest scam and money grab from the whole wedding. But you are doing a wedding after all so expect to be shilling out the cash!

Total Sound and lighting cost:
€3,200 – Fairy lights
€200 – Ceremony Sound
€740 – Wooden floor for the ceremony that we never used
€540 – Installation and transportation for the above
€400 – Party lights (not sure what this even is)
€600 – Party sound (not sure how this is different from Ceremony sound but oh well)
€340 – VAT
€6,075 – Total

DJ and Band

We opted for a DJ for the dinner, and party but a guitarist for the ceremony and the cocktail hour.

We also hired a guitarist for the ceremony because I always envisioned someone singing acoustic covers during the early moments of the wedding. There were a few guitarists hanging around Milos and the Cyclades but we somehow got one of the worst singers I’ve ever seen. Although I saw a video of him singing before hiring, the onsite product was mediocre at best.

I am not a professional singer but I know how to sing and play the guitar so listening to his off key voice was difficult. In fact, it was so off pitch that even non musically inclined guests picked up on it. I think if I could do it again, I would ask him to send me samples of him singing covers to various songs.

There are many DJs to choose from but we ultimately decided on the one DJ that lives on Milos island. It was slightly cheaper and we wanted to support the local economy. HOwever, I think the Milos DJ is smart because he charged a fee that was higher than what Athens DJs charge but slightly lower than the all in cost of an Athens DJ because you need to pay for their transport and accommodations in Milos.

All in all, the DJ played the music we asked for and was able to maintain a nice consistent energy during the dinner. He emphasized how he wanted to build things up during the dinner so it could transition well into the party. I was so worried about the first dance that I wasn’t paying attention but it seemed like everyone was having a good time.

The only downside was that the DJ had another function to attend to during our wedding dinner and cocktail reception so he sent his backup. In typical Greek fashion, he arrived late and it was already well into the party and dance. A lot of the guests commented how the backup DJ was not that great but when the actual DJ came, things picked up.

Total Cost of Music and DJ: €1,300 (DJ) + €550 (Guitarist) = €1,850

Photographer

I’ll keep this short and say that our photographer was by far the best part of the wedding. She was an absolute darling and so fun to work with.

There are many wedding photographers in Greece and we ended up narrowing down the list by simple Instagram research. We talked to a few photographers but ultimately chose the one we did because we liked her photo style and it matched the type of photos we were looking for.

Her package was a flat €1,600 for 8h and 1 day which I thought was reasonable. We booked her for an additional hour at €80 per hour because we needed more time. We wanted to do a morning photoshoot at Sarakiniko beach in Milos which is when the lighting is best. We then wanted to walk around the Plaka to take “quintessential” Greek island pictures with the white houses and cobblestone streets. We then had getting ready photos and of course the wedding itself.

Our photographer was someone we got along with incredibly well and she made the experience that much more enjoyable (and of course amazing photos). We even shared freddo espressos in the Milos Plaka as a little break in between shooting. I think we would be friends outside of our professional arrangement.

We also paid an additional €250 to get the pictures expedited (1 week) as opposed to the standard 4 months processing time. It was all worth it in the end!

Total Photographer cost: €1,600 + €250 (expediting photos) + €160 (2h extra) + €430 (transportation and accommodation to Milos) = €2,440

Florist

Flowers are essential to any wedding and is probably the one thing that blows up the budget the fastest. There is only one florist in Milos and she brings all her flowers in from Athens. We wanted something minimalistic with our weddings as we were lucky enough to have the venue and views speak for themselves.

We were inspired by another wedding that used simply olive branches as the table decor and it looked just the way we wanted.

We had a circular wedding arch that we decorated with roses which was perfect for the ceremony and party. We also paid for additional flowers at the ceremony as well as other random flowers. To be honest, I am absolutely shocked at how much flowers cost. We literally only had olive branches which is like just picking up grass in Greece and we still ended up apying thousands of Euros. If you want a flashy flower heavy wedding, prepare to pay the big bucks.

Total Flowers cost: €1,500 (arch) + €1,000 (table decor) + €250 (bridal bouquet) + €250 (aisle flowers) + €60 (boutinierre) + €1,000 (other random flowers) = €4,000

Transportation for guests

Our wedding, Kipos Cafe is located on the southern cost of Milos. It’s next to nothing and takes 20 minutes from the main Plaka town to reach. We chose it because of its incredible views and privacy which meant we could keep the party going until late int he night.

We didn’t want to burden people with trying to find taxis to get to and from the wedding so we organized that all on our own. We had taxi vans pickup all our guests from their hotels and bring them to our wedding venue ahead of time. Starting from midnight, we also provided shuttle service back to their hotels once every hour on the hour.

Total transportation cost: €2,100

Printings

We wanted to print menus and our vows which we translated to German (for some of the guests). We also printed a large welcome sign for the wedding and the pre-wedding party which defiiltey are a must.

My gripe with this was that our wedding planners said they would make the prints and design it themselves but it was less than a month away with zero drafts or discussion. I couldn’t handle their ineptitude and ended up designing all of it myself using Canva. I could have easily printed a lot of this stuff for much cheaper but then I would have had to transport it to the Greek islands which didn’t seem ideal.

This is definitely one of the ways the wedding planner pockets some extra cash by upcharging printing prices (and they didn’t even do a single thing besides send it to the printer).

Total print costs: €900

Wedding Cake

Our wedding cake was a simple and easy affair. We wanted a white lemon cake which is traditional to the Greek islands. We only wanted a cake for the cake cutting photos and it turned out very well. The cake was acutally delicious and the portion sizes were perfect for the guests. I hate when wedding cakes are too big.

Total wedding cake cost: €500

The Wedding itself

Now on to the good stuff, the actual wedding!

Our wedding was in the Greek island of Milos in the heart of the Cyclades. I’ve only had one wedding so I don’t have much to compare with (obviously) but I’ve attended many weddings and I can say that a wedding in Greece is not all that different. The main thing is that we partied until 4am which is very common for weddings in Europe.

If you’re planning a wedding in the Greek islands, this section will be the perfect anecdote for you. If you’re planning a wedding in and around Athens, it might function a bit differently but I’m sure you’ll still get plenty of inspiration from this!

Thursday before the wedding – Pre party

Our wedding was on a Saturday and we decided to have our welcome party on the Thursday before the wedding so we could give all our guests a day (and ourselves) to rest on Friday. This also allowed people to explore Milos which is easily worth a few days just for itself.

We did our Pre-wedding party at Utopia Cafe which is the best sunset bar in all of Milos. It’s located in the heart of the beautiful Plaka and has stunning views over the Aegean.

We shopped around a few venues for a welcome party big enough to host 60ish people. We knew we wanted a place in the Plaka with sunset views so the options are really limited. Ultimately, it came down to Utopia Cafe and Cafe Mosaic (which is also very beautiful).

After the price quotes came back, we decided to go with Cafe Utopia. The cost breakdown for the pre-wedding party went like this:

Venue rental fee: €3,100
Consumption for 60ish people: €2,900 (including a 10% tip)
Food catering from outside: €1,500
Total: €7,500

In total, we paid a hefty amount for the pre-wedding party because we rented out the entire Utopia cafe space. The venue rental fee was a bit of a WTF moment since we paid €3k just to rent an empty space without anything. Utopia offered an open bar price of €55 per person but I calculated that we would be under this amount (which we were in the end).

Cafe Mosaic offered us a price of €100 per person open bar with light bites. The light bites menu was not that appealing and in the end, this would have been over €6k which is around the same price that Utopia turned out to be. Both are insane prices to pay in Greece but as you can expect, anytime you attach “Wedding” to anything, the prices skyrocket.

Nevertheless, the pre-wedding party at Utopia Cafe was incredible. Everyone came out and we had an amazing time catching up with everyone. The venue is impressive and everyone was blown away by the beautiful Aegean sunset over the horizon.

The food that we had catered was also delicious and every bit of it was consumed. All in all, we stayed until midnight. Some people kept things going afterwards at nearby bars while others got a late night gyros.

Friday before the wedding

Friday before the wedding was a buffer day to allow people to recover and explore the island. Many people simply went to the beach, some did a boat tour, and others simply did nothing. The bride to be had a mini bachelorette party and rented an entire catamaran with a dozen of her friends.

As we were planning the wedding, we did our rehearsal and met our wedding planners for the first time on this day. We drove to Kipos cafe and took care of all of the administrative things that go with a wedding.

For starters, we paid everything in cash so we brought with us tens of thousands of Euros to be counted and sorted appropriately to pay the respective vendors.

Afterwards, we did a logistical overview of how and where the ceremony would happen. We discussed timings, coordinations, and other small details to make sure the following day went off without a hitch. There were some problems that arose on this day without a doubt which is mostly the fault of the wedding planner, but thankfully none of it was catastrophic!

For dinner that night, we had a family and close friends dinner at the wonderful Ergina restaurant. At the end of this meal, our photographer met us for the first time and we discussed how we wanted our photo session to go down the following day.

Saturday – Wedding day!

Finally, the wedding day is upon us! We tried getting plenty of sleep the night before but alas it was not to be. Our dinner only ended at 10:30pm and we tried to be in bed by 11:30pm.

Early morning photo session

However, we planned to take photos at the famous Sarakiniko Beach with its iconic white rocks around sunrise. This is when the lighting is the best as the early morning sun bounces off the limestone rocks. We had seen wedding photos of others that had come around sunrise so we knew we had to have them too. Sunrise is at 6am so we planned to get to Sarakiniko at 6:30 which meant waking up at 5:30am.

We did a wonderful photo shoot with our photographer and spent 1.5h at Sarakinko. Just look at these photos!

Pictures in the Plaka

After Sarakiniko, we wanted pictures in the Plaka which capture the quintessential Greek island vibes with its beautiful white houses and blue painted doors.

Our familities also came and we had a great little photo session together. We even stopped for some freddo espressos with our photographer to simply relax and chat. We really got a long could easily be friends outside of getting photos taken! We wrapped up our photo shoot at 10:30am.

Getting ready before the wedding

We went back to our hotel to take a nap before the afternoon “Getting ready” photo shoot. Around 2pm, our photographer came back and we started the getting ready photo spree.

At 3pm, our close friends came to hang out by the pool, have some champagne, and take many photos of each other. At 4pm, family came to take more photos and by 5pm, we were all headed towards the venue.

The bride and groom went slightly later to allow for all the guests to arrive at the venue, grab some light refreshments, and get seated in the chairs. I wanted to enter by scooter (as this is 100% my style) so I had a friend leave their scooter near to the venue a few hours earlier.

I found the scooter and made my entrance to the ceremony at 6:20pm! My lovely wife to be made her entrance shortly after. In total, the ceremony lasted 30 minutes and was officiated by our close friend. We are not religious so we did not bother with any official registrant. This is of course one of the options but thankfully, not a cost we had to take.

Wedding time

I could write an entire blog post about the rest of the wedding so I will just spare the details, attach a bunch of pictures and include the general timeline of how the wedding happened.

17h to 1730 – Transportation shuttles picked up all guests

18:00 – Everyone is at the venue, light refreshments including water and juice

18:20 – Groom enters by scooter

18:25 – Bride enters

18:30 to 19:00 – Ceremony

19h to 20:30 – Cocktail reception

20:30 to 22:30 – Dinner, speeches etc.

22:45 – Cake Cutting

23:15 – First dance

Until 4am – Party!

What I wish I knew before planning a wedding in Greece

After having finished our wedding in Milos, Greece, there are definitely some takeaways I have with the whole experience.

For starters, we thoroughly absolutely loved our wedding day and seeing all of our close friends and family. Everything mostly flowed correctly, and by the end of it everyone was so drunk that the party was going to be good regardless.

So here is a list of all the things I wish I knew or could have done differently:

Wedding Planner:

Our wedding planner was average to subpar. They didn’t have experience in Milos or at Kipos cafe which was the first red flag. This could have been fine if they had shown the initiative to understand the venue but they did not. In addition, they were generally responsive but did not action any of the requests or questions we had.

In the end, they made a lot of mistakes and forgot many of the things we wanted at the wedding. Thankfully, we were able to catch most of these the day before but when you’re already paying someone over €5,000, it should be their job to make things run smoothly. I’ve only had one wedding (thankfully) so I can’t compare wedding planners experiences, but I know this one was lacking.

Always plan for spending more money on a Greek wedding

Our initial estimate from multiple wedding planners was €30-€35k. In the end, we spent over €40k and had even fewer people than the initial estimate.

Costs add up quickly when planning a wedding and you can expect everyone to charge you 50-100% more for the same services they would offer someone without the “Wedding” title attached to it. That’s just how it goes in the wedding industry.

Time creeps up very fast

We actually started planning our wedding almost 1.5y before the date. We were able to secure everything without issue. However, this led to a false sense of security that because we had so much time left, we didn’t have to worry about so much.

Safe to say, that the last 6 months where everything should have been done crept up super fast. A lot of the basic things like table decor, menu designs, and signs should have been taken care of but we were left without even a sample 1 month before the wedding.

Tell your guests to book flights and accommodations well in advance

A lot of people left their accommodations and flights to the last minute and paid the price. There are multiple flights to Milos a day but sometimes they get booked up fast. This was the case in our wedding that all the flights leaving Sunday morning after the weddding were booked and our friends had to stay an extra night in Milos (not the end of the world).