Lydia & Funbi — A Liopetro Wedding in Paphos, Cyprus

Lydia and Funbi were married at Liopetro, up at Kouklia in the hills behind Paphos. This is the full arc of the day, and like Roxy and Scott a fortnight earlier, we shot and delivered it entirely in black and white.

A slow start in the stone rooms

Liopetro's prep rooms are built into the old stone, and the walls are rough enough to throw texture into every frame. Light comes in sideways rather than from overhead, which is unusually kind for getting-ready coverage. Most venues give you a hotel room with a net curtain and a lot of hope.

Lydia and her bridesmaids spent most of the morning on the bed in matching satin and lace, laughing at something on a phone. Nobody asked us what they should be doing, which is the single best sign a morning is going well.

The courtyard, then the chapel

By the time the ceremony started, the courtyard was full. Liopetro is one of the busiest wedding venues in Paphos for good reason: pale stone that holds the heat, open courtyards, and three or four distinctly different spaces inside one site, so a single day can look varied without anybody getting in a minibus.

The frame we keep coming back to is from later on. The whole bridal party walked out towards the old domed chapel and the arched ruins beside it, five bridesmaids and Lydia, every one of them carrying a pale paper parasol. Backs to us, walking away across the rough ground, parasols up against the sun.

It works because nobody posed it. The parasols were there because it was hot and somebody had thought ahead. We just walked behind them and let it happen.

The reception

Speeches, a first dance, and then a dance floor that stayed full past the point where most weddings quietly thin out. Funbi and Lydia were on it for most of it.

Liopetro handles a late night well. The stone holds the warmth from the afternoon, so nobody drifts indoors, and the courtyard keeps the party in one place instead of scattering it across a resort.

What we have learned shooting Liopetro

This is the third Liopetro wedding in our journal, and a few things hold true across all of them. The first is that the venue is at its best in the last two hours of daylight, when the stone stops being bright and starts being warm. If you have any say over your ceremony time, that's what to plan around.

The second is that you don't need long here. Twenty minutes gets you the courtyard, the ruins and the chapel walk. Any Liopetro wedding photographer who wants an hour of your evening is taking time you'd rather spend with your guests.

The third is about the ground. It is rough underfoot out towards the chapel, rocky in places, and heels sink. Worth warning the bridal party before anyone sets off in good shoes.