An Otherworldly Wedding in Santorini

Photography by Cara Mia

Awash with sweeping vistas and jewelled seas, Jenna and Cody’s seaside Santorini wedding has us dreaming of otherworldly landscapes. Set above dramatic clifftops their ceremony was engulfed by luminous coastlines. Inspired by the whitewashed homes that trickled down mountaintops, a muted palette seeped through every element of their decor. Poetic blooms draped over whitewashed linens and crystalline candles set the tone for an evening of dining and dancing beneath sapphire skies.

Entangled in the serenading sounds of the sea, the night unfolded around the intimacy of loved ones and Apulian skies.

Our Story

Names / Jenna Renee Westbrook & Cody Lynn Westbrook

Wedding Date / October 23^rd, 2021

Guest Numbers / 35

Santorini Wedding

How We Met

We both swiped right haha! We are a Tinder love story. It sounds so crazy to say out loud sometimes but we met right when dating apps became a real thing. It was early in 2014, he was one of my first “matches” at the time. Cody was living in NYC and I was in school in NJ. He asked me on a few dates, all of which I made excuses for because I had no real idea who this man on Tinder was. But instead of taking the hint, he continued pursuing me which I secretly loved. He ended up going back home to SC for a couple of months which is really when we started to get to know one another. We began talking on the phone & facetiming for hours on end every night. When he came back to NYC, I felt much more comfortable going on a real date with him. When we finally saw each other (4 months after matching) it felt like we had known one another for years. We instantly became inseparable and have been together ever since.

Our Engagement Story

Originally Cody booked a big beach house down in Charleston, SC for May 2019. He had a whole plan and was having my best friends and family coming down to surprise us after the engagement and spend the weekend all together on the beach. Then, 3 weeks before the trip, he broke his foot. Needless to say, he didn’t want to propose to me with a giant boot on his leg. He canceled the trip and once his foot healed, he booked a vacation to go to the Dominican Republic in the early Summer of 2019, just the two of us! I of course was a little suspicious but he had my friends convince me it wasn’t happening yet. On the second day, we saw what looked to be an incredible sunset from our villa so we ran down to the beach to see it. To this day I can’t remember a more beautiful sunset. Cody set up his phone to take a photo of us which wasn’t abnormal. Then as we started to take the photo, he dropped to one knee.

Marriage To Us Means…

To us, marriage means partnership throughout all of life’s ups and downs. Marriage is loving each other unconditionally and growing closer together each and every day for the rest of our lives!

The Details

Wedding Location

Rocabella Hotel, Santorini, Greece. Years prior to even getting engaged Cody and I have always dreamed of visiting Santorini! We were so intrigued by its beauty and the beautiful whites and blues. Something about it all felt so fresh. We knew we wanted to have a small, intimate destination wedding there with our favorite people.

Preperation

One of our favorite things about having a destination wedding was that all our family and friends were all in one place at the same time! Most of them stayed at Rocabella where we had the wedding, so Cody and I were in separate rooms but were visited throughout the day by everyone!

Aesthetic

We were truly inspired by our backdrop, we wanted to keep everything classy and simple. We were in such a beautiful place and really wanted our surroundings to be the focal point rather than the décor itself!

Ceremony & Reception Décor

We kept the ceremony décor very clean and airy. We had white floral arrangements and low-standing pillars to our sides at the altar. We wanted to keep it very minimal, so we didn’t take away from the amazing view behind us.

We loved the romantic feeling of fairy lights so wanted to incorporate that into the reception/dinner area. We had two large tables with long-stemmed floral arrangements and candles throughout! We kept the flowers to be shades of white to go with our surroundings.

“We both made a point to take moments and just look around and soak it all up. It was vibrant, emotional, chaotic, calm, natural, everything was perfect.”

Photography / Videography

Something that has always been extremely important to us is capturing moments. Cody and I both have a creative eye and really wanted to find the perfect pairing to shoot our wedding. We wanted people who could capture the emotions of the day, but not just of us. We wanted them to include everyone who traveled all the way to Greece to celebrate with us too. Cara Mia is one of the most talented photographers with the kindest heart. We couldn’t help but gravitate towards her. Her photography radiates light and raw emotion and is so captivating. Everything fell so perfectly into place! Cara brought her amazing second shooter, Hannah, to help capture the day – I think in total there were about 20,000 photos taken and over 30 rolls of film to develop.. a DREAM!

Our videographer, Max Cutrone, is also insanely talented and a pleasure to work with! After finding a photographer so easily we were really focused on trying to find our perfect videographer. We searched for months to find the style that we wanted. We didn’t really want your traditional wedding video and once we found Max, our jaws dropped. He was everything we could ever imagine. His work is so unique and unlike anyone, we’ve ever seen. His videos are refreshing, with exciting cuts that make you long for more! Max is such an incredible filmmaker and his talent is unmatched.

We could not have gotten luckier having the best team to capture our day. We also brought along some black and white disposable cameras that we placed on the tables so that our guests were able to shoot and have fun with them as well.

Fashion Notes

Bride’s Dress

Flora Bridal was my dress designer. It was chic, classy, and timelessly beautiful. The story behind it all was that initially I stumbled upon the dress on Pinterest and fell in love with the delicate details, the sheerness and beautiful shape. I had never seen anything quite like it. I messaged them almost immediately asking if they were doing any pop-ups in the states, since the brand was based in Israel. With the most utter luck, they were doing a pop up in my hometown that weekend. Needless to say I made the first appointment they had and brought my maid of honor with me and some dear friends and we found the dress. I tried on a few options but each one I tried, the more in love I fell with my first choice.

Bride’s Shoes

My shoes were from Aeyde. They were wonderful and exceptionally comfortable and I loved the fact that they weren’t a stark white, more of a cream.

Bridesmaids’ Dresses

My little pearls. My Bridesmaids wore these gorgeous cream silk dresses from Daily Sleeper.

Wedding Rings

My engagement ring is from Melanie Casey. I always gravitated towards a more delicate engagement ring and admired the way the diamonds weren’t symmetrical on both sides, yet it was still timeless. My band is from Tiffany & Co. It is a little thicker which I think anchors the two together forming a wonderful pairing. Cody had a custom ring made by a jewelry company based in San Diego called Honey. He worked with their designer on making his ideal band.

Jewelry / Accessories

My earrings were from Cult Gia and then all the little accents of earrings & rings were from Monica Vinader.

Groomsmen

The Groomsmen all had on custom suits from Suit Supply.

Makeup & Hair

My dear friend, Georgios Tsiogkas did my hair and makeup. I really wanted to look and feel natural on my wedding day which meant very minimal makeup and an easy, yet elegant hairstyle. I trust George with my life and let him kinda do his thing the day of. I had shown him a few ideas that I had but he took everything to another level and made me feel so special. He is truly an amazing person and I cant imagine not having him there with me.

Style Notes

Stationery & Invitations

I’m a graphic designer so I actually designed our save the dates, invitations, menus & place cards myself.

Flowers & Bouquets

Julia and Evita recommended Betty Flowers Santorini and they did not disappoint. The arrangements were mostly long-stemmed, but we wanted a variety in height to give the flowers a little bit of dimension.

Cake

Oh my, the cake was just *chefs kiss – I have such a sweet tooth and I could’ve eaten 20 of those cakes! We did a Lemon buttercream icing and vanilla cake.

Wedding Songs

I walked down the aisle to “I Knew This Would Be Love” by Imaginary Future.

The ceremony to conclude we played “Real Love Baby” by Father John Misty.

Our first dance song was “Biblical” by Calum Scott.

Celebrant

We chose to do a symbolic ceremony led by our darling friend, Margaret Grzymkowski! She is one of our nearest and dearest friends and truly could not have made that moment any more special. She had Cody and I both in tears, along with everyone else witnessing.

Wedding Planner

We knew going into this that planning a wedding in a different country would be a challenge so from the start we knew we wanted to hire a planner to help us execute our vision. We chatted with a few over the course of the summer and our last meeting was with a wonderful mother/daughter duo. We immediately felt a connection with them! Julia and Evita brought every dream and vision we had to live! We could not have done it without them, even throughout the process of picking a venue, Evita face timed us to show us some of our options and truly made it such an easy experience. We originally were supposed to get married in October of 2020 but of course, had to change all of that due to the pandemic. Julia and Evita were there for us throughout the entire rescheduling process and truly made us feel at ease. They are now forever friends and we are so grateful to have met them!

Entertainment

We had a DJ! A good majority of the songs were curated from our friends and family that were added onto a Spotify playlist that continued to grow until the night of the wedding! It was a fun way for the DJ to get an idea of not only the music we liked, but the music everyone at the party would enjoy.

Food & Beverages

Since we had a smaller, more intimate wedding we wanted to keep the starters & salads family-style, for everyone to chat and enjoy around the table. Following that everyone had their own entrées to eat. It was a sit-down dinner with drinks under those magical fairy lights!

Special Details

Sources of Inspiration

We had so much fun looking through Pinterest. I think from the beginning we both knew what we wanted so it was fun to look through some current & vintage tears for inspiration. And to be honest, we found so much through The Lane! We enjoyed taking small bits and pieces from each of our favorite weddings and making it our own.

Honeymoon

We stayed at the cutest little airbnb in Atrani on the Amalfi Coast! We rented a car while we were there so we were able to go and explore around while keeping a homebase!

A memorable moment…

It’s impossible to choose just one so I’m cheating and giving two haha!

With deep sadness, my father passed away of a sudden heart attack five years ago. He was the anchor for our family and truly was the glue that held it all together. He was everything to me, so not having him there that day was extremely difficult. Luckily, I had his brother, my uncle, there to walk me down the aisle. The way he looked at me was exactly how my father would have. Having him there was like having a piece of my Dad with me that day and for that, I am forever grateful.

And now that I’m crying haha I just wanted to note one other thing Cody and I both really hold onto, which was the overall energy of that day. Stepping back and seeing all of the people that traveled all this way to support our love, who care so deeply for Cody and I, was incredible. We both made a point to take moments and just look around and soak it all up. It was vibrant, emotional, chaotic, calm, natural, everything was perfect. We were surrounded by our closest friends and family, and you could feel every bit of that love!

One thing I wish I knew before I started my wedding plans…

Whatever your budget is, plan ahead to spend a little bit more than that. So if your actual budget is $50k, try your best to do it for $40k because there will be other expenses that pop up along the way so its best to already have that planned in.

If I could give other Brides to be one piece of advice…

Make a plan with your husband to take small moments throughout the day to step back, hold one another’s hand, and take in the experience. We have had so many couples say things like, “the day goes by in a flash!” And, “we hardly remember our wedding day because everything happened so fast.” So Cody and I both made points to stop and be present together and just let the excitement and the joy of the day sink in.