Invasion of the Brides

The bus swayed with every curve. The drop below us was steep. We were driving along Santorini’s cliffs to Oia, on the tip of the island. To steady my nausea I asked to sit at the front of the bus next to the driver. As is typical in Greece, the bus driver was chatty, and more so with me when he found out that I spoke Greek it. Somehow we got onto the topic of tourists in Greece and Santorini and my stilted accent, as off as old cheese, did not deter him from answering my questions.

‘What surprised me the most are the amount of Chinese newlyweds’ I said. ‘There were none the last time I was here in Santorini two years ago. And now…’

‘And now they are our bread and butter’ said the driver finishing off my sentence. ‘Our best clients!’

The rise of the Chinese brides was a recent and powerful phenomenon. When I arrived in Santorini, the first thing I noticed at the start of my trip was not the deep blue sea dotted by yachts, the many domed-churches, or the cliffs that plunged at the 90-degree angle into the Aegean. What made a lasting impression on me was the Chinese bride smiling into the camera and posing at the edge of a cliff with her husband. I assumed she had just got married and wanted to take her wedding photos and though nothing further of it. Then I spotted another bride walking towards a viewpoint with a photographer and husband in tow. Then another. And another. And another. How many Chinese weddings were there in Santorini? And all at once? And why did I not see more Chinese families?

‘There were no weddings you fool’ shouted the bus driver when I explained this to him. His shout had awoken the German lady dozing lightly at the back of the bus. ‘They get married in China, celebrate with their families there and come here, just husband and wife, to have their wedding photos taken. They do it for the landscape.’ I could not understand it. It did not make sense to me to have wedding photos taken at a date and area far-removed from your actual wedding.

These brides, who travelled across the world, to a tiny island in the Aegean, had found themselves tottering on the edge of cliffs in high-heels and in frilly, pristine-white wedding dress, in some cases seeming to risk their own lives, for a Kodak moment. Their husbands, ever-present and eternally patient were always a few steps behind them, in their wedding suit. Upon cue from their photographer they got into a loving position, soap-opera-style, with the caldera behind them and click, photo taken. Now the next one.

These brides were the true, trailblazing Bridezillas who smiled lovingly into their husband’s eyes while battling the Greek sun that beat down on them as they. They were true to their mission who, in the words of Madonna, were to ‘strike a pose’. Surely their make-up must have melted in the heat. But no; as they walked past us, on their way to another viewpoint for a photo shoot, they appeared as fresh as ever. Their husbands, unlike them, were finding it tough, with beads of sweat forming and reforming on their foreheads as they wiped them away with a handkerchief. But the photo session like the wedding was not about the groom but about the bride.

‘And the brides come just to Santorini for the wedding photos?’ I asked the bus driver.

‘Santorini and Mykonos’ he said. ‘And Athens’ he added in.

‘How nice. They get to see the museums as well and all the sites at least.’

‘No they don’t. They go get their photos taken on the Acropolis and then they got shopping, for jewellery and leather goods. They don’t even visit one museum. Not even the New Acropolis Museum. They just come and take photos, go shopping and leave. Brides today know what they want.’

‘Didn't they always?’ I asked.

‘Well’ began the bus driver ‘before all a bride wanted was a husband. Now all a bride wants is a man for the wedding photos.’