Wednesday, September 5, 2012

My Girlfriend's Cousin's Big Fat Greek Engagement Party

A few weeks after arriving in Stamford, we received an very formal invitation to Amy's cousin Danny and his fiancee Despina's engagement party. You may be confused looking at the photos thinking this was actually a wedding, but no, it was infact just the pre-party to the wedding. It was all about being Greek, and boy do they do it properly. Danny is the only grandchild in Amy's family to be involved with another Greek, and so both families wanted to put on proper festivities and celebration and this allowed us to be involved in quite the epic party. 

The party was held in the town just over, in the ballroom of a locally Greek owned Inn, with a guest list of 150! I had been warned this was going to be serious. I had to scramble to find fitting clothes appropriate for such an event, but eventually managed to come up with a sharp ensemble, wearing items from three different people. We were greeted with an open bar for the evening and a cocktail hour with some amazing nibbles to start.

Shannon, Nicole and Amy seated in the ballroom.

Again, this was no casual get-to-gether. We were seated at tables adorned with beautiful centerpieces, and experienced an evening of speeches, dancing, delicious food, cake cutting, gift giving, more dancing and MONEY! I had been warned about this tradition but didn't over think it. As the couple had their first official dance of their engagement, Amy's Grandfather walks over to the slow dancing couple and throws a bunch of $1 bills at them. I was completely shocked as a queue of people started lining up to throw money on the couple. This continued all night.
 
....... this 
This turned into .....




















This was one amazing party and an event I enjoyed a lot. A night of dancing with about 80% of the music played being traditional Greek, followed by lines of linked armed dancers stepping and kicking through a dance floor so thick in money that it had to be swept three times over the evening and bundled up into black rubbish bags. A bit of practice earlier in the week, where Amy guided myself and her uncle through some basic steps, contributed to my superb dancing performances of the night!



2 comments:

  1. Happy to know about big fat engagement party. I am planning a cocktail party for my sister at one of the awesome Seattle venues next month. Looking forward for some on the spot performances by relatives and friends followed by surprise gifts for the winners.

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