A true love story unfolding over a Wow Factor 4 Days luxury celebration inspired by the natural palette of Mykonos

This multi-day wedding celebration of Anand & Sabrina was designed around thematic concepts for each day, so that the guest experience would evolve and reach its peak at the Wedding Ceremony on the last day, culminating with a closing mega party at the 5* Avaton Hotel, where the couple had privatised and bought out 151 suites for all of their guests to stay on site at the Myconian Collection throughout the celebrations. Every single detail was personalised and thoughtfully considered – every guest received a welcome bracelet upon check in and was greeted on arrival by the couple and their families, custom room key cards with the couple’s initials were used throughout the hotel, daily changing sweet local delicacies were left on the pillows of every guest each night, along with a printed goodnight message from the bride and groom, and a reminder of the next day’s itinerary. Custom napkins were designed for every meal around the couple’s event themes. Guest experience was prioritised above everything else and the couple employed a team of butlers, logistics coordinators, nannies, and security personnel, in addition to the large team of suppliers and coordinators already on site, solely dedicated to ensuring every guest was looked after in the best way possible. On day 1, all guests who had arrived in Mykonos before the official wedding celebrations kicked off were invited to join Anand & Sabrina at a Rehearsal Dinner in the famous Mykonos town as an informal welcome to the Island. The next day would see the entire group of 270 guests check in at the privatised Avaton Hotel and enjoy a heartfelt welcome lunch around the infinity pool, while listening to a live harpist, and browsing through a 90 page custom wedding magazine ‘The Newslyweds’, featuring interviews with friends and family, Mykonos recommendations, crosswords, hotel details, family recipes and other insights from Anand and Sabrina. The Welcome Party was dedicated to Ancient Greece and saw the Avaton Hotel turn into Mount Olympus, home to actors dressed as mythological Gods, live flames, mermaids performing in the infinity pool and even the couple’s busts created as Greek statues. Although the idea on this first night was to not escalate into a late party, as the next day would open with a morning event, the party had definitely started! Everyone danced and enjoyed the spectacular sunset with cocktails in hand. Day 3 began with an open air “Music Festival” themed event that was inspired by a festival that took place in the couple’s hometown. Guests picked up their custom festival wristbands, wore their most colourful festival style outfits and danced to the tunes of the live bands that took to the stage, while an assortment of street food stalls, with cuisines from around the world were served alongside a frozen cocktail bar. Other live performing artists, magicians and face painters ensured every guest was having a great time. A few hours of rest and changing outfits and the Indian element of the celebrations was about to start. The colourful Sangeet event, coined ‘The Goyal Variety Show’, in tribute to the couple’s last name, was an incredible showcase of dancing, singing and acting abilities of the very talented families and friends of the couple, who honoured them with their performances taking place under a ceiling of suspended florals. Traditional Indian food was served and catered by the famous TV Greek chef, Dimitris Skarmoutsos, and cocktails featuring traditional Indian ingredients, such as mango and ginger, complimented the themed concept of the event, that saw everyone get sore feet from dancing all night to the globally renowned mixes of celebrity DJ, DJ Frenzy, who the couple had flown in for their Sangeet. The final day of celebrations was to be the ultimate culmination of everything already experienced by the guests up to that moment: the design, food, florals and party were taken to an even greater level. The vision for the Wedding Ceremony was to create an unparalleled Enchanted Garden in an area that had never been used as a wedding ceremony spot before. Filled with natural flowers, arrangements, and even bougainvillea trees along the natural pink colour palette of Mykonos, the ceremony was an extremely emotional walk down memory lane, featuring a love story found only usually in fairytales. Prior to Sabrina’s big entrance, a video was screened to all guests, featuring a compilation of edited childhood home videos of the couple growing up together. Anand Goyal and Sabrina Pervez had first started dating at school, aged 15, however a few months into their relationship the discovery of some old childhood photos revealed that they had in fact also been best friends at nursery as children. The couple were also born just 4 days apart in the same hospital in Essex, UK. This story told through the power of video, whilst live string music played, resulted in not a single dry eye in the house as the bride made her entrance. A very moving ceremony where the couple shared their own vows, and embraced several different wedding traditions to honour their respective cultures and heritages brought further tears of joy and emotion to all, before guests enjoyed a champagne reception. Dinner was next and again no detail was left to chance. Guests enjoyed a 6 course fine dining menu, paired with wine. Personalised embroidered linen napkins with the couple’s initials and wedding date were twirled high in the air throughout the dinner as the notoriously brilliant London Essentials band kept everyone thoroughly entertained, singing and dancing on their chairs as the meal progressed. Fairy lights, multi-colour florals and a huge video wall playing a live feed of the evening further adorned the space. Touching speeches were shared from the fathers of the bride and groom and from Anand and Sabrina themselves. Fireworks lit up the night sky and an 0h-So-Greek plate smashing session was enjoyed by everyone before the grand finale. All guests returned to the Avaton Hotel infinity pool area which was transformed into a Mykonos Nightclub, with a spectacular light show, laser beams on the neighbouring mountain – spelling out ‘Mr and Mrs Goyal’, hanging disco balls, dancing LED butterflies and disco themed hosting teams, ABBA tribute dancers fulfilling the true ‘Mamma Mia!’ Greek experience and a synchronized swimming performance in parallel with a pyroshow! It was the epitome of an ultra Myconian party experience. Guests partied well into the morning, with many not going to sleep until 6am. The next day the couple hosted a post-wedding celebratory dinner at Mykonos’ Solymar beach club for around 120 of their guests who were still on the Island. The couple also took this opportunity to thank publicly thank their incredible wedding planning team, Naido Weddings.
FLORALS & DECOR
At the Welcome Party florals included hydrangeas spanning different shades of blue and white and green foliage displayed in gold vases, to tie in with the Ancient Greece theme. A colourful floral arch, featuring light pink, fuchsia, yellow and orange flowers set against greenery was a photo spot for guests at the Music Festival event. A ceiling featuring suspended circular floral arrangements in the same colours provided shade above the dance area and stage at this event. A custom destination sign was painted featuring the locations all the guests had travelled from to be at the wedding celebrations, as well as other festival themed decorations and colourful furniture the couple had shipped across to Mykonos for the event. The Sangeet featured a large floral arch with red, burgundy, mustard and dark orange flowers. Floral arrangements were also hung above the personalised dance floor. Guests sat on cream sofas adorned with colourful, Indian style cushions. A mirrored tress was constructed to surround the dance floor. The Wedding Ceremony included a gazebo and ground arch where the couple exchanged vows, as well as two additional arches in the aisle area. Hanging pink floral were also tied to the arches. Ground arrangements were also placed along the aisle and guest seating areas. Rose petals were also scattered in the area, in the flower girl baskets and in cones as confetti. Specific florals in the Wedding Ceremony space included: pink voukamvilia, pink, dark pink and fuchsia peonies sara bernar, piano button, peonies doctor flemigk, eustoma piccolo pink, roses paloma royal, hanging fushcia and pink carnations, other natural greenery. The bridal bouquet was made up of white peonies and olive tree leaves. Bridesmaids had smaller versions of the same. The Groom wore a single white peony as a buttonhole. Groomsmen and fathers of the bride and groom wore pink mondial roses for buttonholes. The Wedding Dinner reception had a multi colour floral palette, featuring ground arrangements, floral table runner centrepieces. The Bride and Groom’s table featured an arch behind them and tall ground arrangements. Tableware was hand picked to compliment the florals and setting. Specific floristry included: Purple mini allium, light blue delphinium, ami, Bupleurum, white veronica, solintago, chamomile, coral peonies, gentiana, Aster Cassandra, Ranunculus Cloony Renoir, Ranunculus Elegance Orange, Ranunculus Elegance Yellow, yellow oncidium
SPECIAL DETAIL #1
The couple provided custom gift bags in every guest suite upon check in. These included a large custom tote bag, embroidered with the couple’s initials and a custom greek design. Contents of the bag included various traditional greek snacks, corduroy custom caps embroidered with the couple’s initials, custom woven towels featuring a traditional greek design and the couple’s names, a plug adaptor, copies of the custom 90-page wedding magazine and itinerary cards of the weekend’s events. Every evening each guest also received a sweet treat and a good night message from the couple left in their room, inside custom gift boxes featuring a greek design and the couple’s names.
SPECIAL DETAIL #2
Entertainment was a big factor throughout the celebrations, with several different DJs, bands, live musicians, singers, dancers, synchronised swimmers, magicians, live actors and other performers brought on site for the duration of the celebrations.
SPECIAL DETAIL #3
The couple placed huge importance on making every single guest feel special. The celebrations were extravagant and had the wow factor, but it was this detail that was to take the utmost priority: Anand and Sabrina wrote individual, personalised letters, containing specific memories, anecdotes and well wishes, to all 270 guests which were then delivered to guests as they sat down at the Wedding Dinner. Anand and Sabrina performed a duet themselves at the Sangeet, where they acknowledged by name every member of their extended family and bridal party in the form of a song with Sabrina on the piano and Anand on the guitar. Each guest was assigned a butler to help with any needs they might have throughout the weekend, beyond the support already provided by the Avaton Hotel team. There were organised activities and excursions for guests to enjoy in the downtime around wedding events, including food and olive oil tasting, yoga classes and trips into Mykonos town.
The result?
As every guest called it: “The wedding of the century!”