A Seaside Garden Wedding in Crete With a Stepping Stone Aisle and a Floral Arch

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Seda Sinan and Yanni Kevas married in Chania, Greece, with 70 guests, eight months of planning and a playlist that ran from Billie Eilish to traditional Greek and Turkish music. The palette stayed in soft green and blush pink, the florals came in generous volume, and a civil ceremony made the marriage legal on the day itself. Sea View by En Kipo gave the celebration a garden facing the sea, a newly unveiled reception area and a floral team that styled everything from the arch to the dinner tables.

Location: Crete, Greece
Style: Classic, Romantic, Authentic
Time of planning: 8 months
Number of guests: 70
Setting: Garden

Seda and Yanni met in their sophomore year of university at a birthday party that Seda and her roommates hosted for a mutual friend. One day Yanni turned up at the pool where Seda worked as a lifeguard, the day before his MCAT, chose to relax instead of studying, and the two talked for eight hours straight. Yanni still aced the exam, they became a couple in senior year, and after graduation both moved to Baltimore, United States, for medical school and nursing school, then to New York, United States, in June of 2025, when Yanni matched for residency. After nearly six years together, Yanni planned a proposal on the beaches of Kauai, Hawaii, United States, and when the hidden camera he set up missed the moment, the couple reenacted it for the photos.

Both are loyal, humble and naturally introverted, happiest at home with their dog and cat. Yanni is the planner and Seda is the spontaneous one, and their biggest difference is cultural: Yanni is Greek, Seda is Turkish, and Seda’s opening argument in the couple’s rivalry is that baklava is Turkish. Crete gave both families a shared Mediterranean setting, on an island that spent more than two centuries as an Ottoman province before joining Greece, and the differences have taught each of them to appreciate the other’s traditions. The day was filmed by George Chasourakis.

Bride's Morning & Fashion

Seda’s brief was a modern garden party staged against the Mediterranean, with Pride and Prejudice as one of her favorite references and Bridgerton as the source for the songs she picked for the violinists. Bridgerton built its sound on string arrangements of modern pop songs, which makes it a precise reference for a bride who wanted string players at a garden party.

Seda wore two custom gowns, each designed from scratch with the designers at L’Atelier Blanc Istanbul. The ceremony gown is a white satin ballgown with a basque waist, the pointed bodice line taken from corsetry, and a cat eye neckline. The reception gown is a fitted mermaid lace design with a structured corset, a sweetheart neckline and eyelash lace trim, which moves the look from a silhouette built on volume to one built on fit as the evening shifts from ceremony to dancing.

Both gowns share one pair of shoes, Jimmy Choo Love 65 pumps, chosen after two hours of trying on pairs at the Jimmy Choo boutique in Manhattan, United States. The Love 65 is a mid heel, a practical height for a day that moves between a lawn and a dance floor.

Her white gold and pearl necklace and earring set was a gift from Yanni, and so was the choice of fragrance, Burberry Her, which keeps the groom present in the look. Pearls also tie the outfit to the Regency references behind the day. Makeup came from Evy Papadopoulos in a soft glam finish, and hair from Fontini Michel in soft curls. The bouquet mixed blush pink peonies, white garden roses and cascading amaranthus, which Seda names as her favorite part. Amaranthus takes its name from the Greek amarantos, meaning unfading, a quiet fit for a Turkish bride carrying flowers on a Greek island.

Groom’s Fashion

Yanni wore a tan linen suit from JOE by Joseph Abboud with brown leather loafers. His boutonniere is a miniature of Seda’s bouquet in the same blooms and palette, so the bride’s flowers travel to his lapel. The gifts run even: pearls and a fragrance from Yanni, and a two tone Tissot watch from Seda.

Ceremony

The ceremony took place at Sea View by En Kipo, in a garden facing the sea. The couple wanted it intimate, lighthearted and authentic, with family and friends fully present in the moment. The lawn holds two blocks of white chairs split by an aisle of pale stepping stones instead of a runner, and the floral arch stands at the far edge so the horizon becomes the backdrop to the vows. En Kipo Flower Creations, the venue’s floral and decor team, built the arch in the blush pink and white of the bouquet.

The couple chose a civil ceremony, and a Greek official from the town of Chania married them that day, because the marriage was meant to be real on the wedding day instead of a symbolic ceremony with the paperwork handled later.

Seda describes standing beneath the florals, several glasses of champagne in, with the sea breeze around her, and says that looking at her husband under the arch is a moment she will never forget. Yanni has the mirror version, standing with his back turned and looking out at the ocean while he waited for his wife to walk down the aisle.

Moments Together

The portraits were made by photographer Anastasiia in the same garden the ceremony used, and they suit a couple who describe themselves as naturally introverted: each frame is built around two people and one prop instead of a crowd. The white lace parasol does the most work, since it compresses the Regency garden party vocabulary Seda cited into a single object held over the couple under the floral arch, and it also keeps the Cretan sun off a satin ballgown.

The garden supplies the rest of the set. Flowering shrubs with purple blooms behind a garden bench add a second palette next to the soft green and blush of the florals, and the black and white frames remove that color so the volume of the satin skirt becomes the subject. The veil frame puts the sea breeze Seda mentioned to work as a prop, and the sequence shows a couple who planned the day with care and left room for whatever the afternoon added.

Reception

The reception also took place at Sea View by En Kipo, in the venue’s newly unveiled reception area overlooking the Mediterranean. After cocktail hour, the grand double doors opened to reveal the dinner space, which turns arrival at dinner into a curtain rising on a stage set. The room behind them held a bar, cocktail tables, lounge seating under a pergola, a sweetheart table and floral arrangements on tall clear stands at every table.

Those stands repeat the ceremony’s blush pink and white at a new height. The arch worked overhead, while the tall clear stands lift the blooms to eye level and keep sightlines open across the room, which the couple describes as a more modern, elevated version of the ceremony florals. Candlelight and fairy lights carried the warm tone into the evening, and Rent DJ supplied the dance floor and lighting.

The soundtrack is where the two cultures meet. The couple made their grand entrance to Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish. Dinner ran on a chill wedding playlist, and the first dance was Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling in Love, a song from the 1961 film Blue Hawaii, which was shot partly on Kauai, the island where Yanni proposed. A Mustafa Sandal track that blends Turkish and Greek lyrics came next, followed by traditional Greek and Turkish music, American oldies and a closing run of high energy party hits, all with Giorgos Miliaras on the decks.

Guests drank signature espresso martinis and old fashioneds, with catering and bar service from Fragkiskos Sartzetakis. The lemon pound cake with buttercream frosting wears vintage inspired piping, and its swags and beads speak the vocabulary of the Lambeth method, the Victorian overpiping style later named after Joseph Lambeth, whose 1934 book promoted it. The method started in royal icing, and this cake uses buttercream, the modern default.

Toasts came from Seda’s sisters and the groom’s youngest groomsmen, and the speeches had everyone laughing and crying. Every guest took home a custom illustration of themselves with a significant other, friend or plus one, drawn by Isabella Holmes, which turns the guest list into a personal keepsake for each person in it.

The dance floor stayed packed from the first song until late at night. Seda’s most memorable moment was a quiet one: sitting down at dinner after months of planning the music, the decor and the timeline, hearing the songs she chose, looking at the family and friends around her and realizing it was actually happening.

Advice from the couple:

• Our biggest piece of advice is to accept that something will probably go wrong, and that’s okay! No matter how much you plan, there will always be little things that don’t go exactly as expected Don’t let those moments take away from everything you worked so hard to create. Keep moving, keep having fun, and try not to stress over the small things.

• You’ve spent months planning this one day, and it goes by incredibly fast. Be present, soak it all in, and enjoy every moment with each other and the people you love. At the end of the day those are the memories that you’ll carry with you: “Wow, this is actually our wedding day!”