Wedding Scents from the Island of Chios!

Smart and imaginative wedding planners usually pump inspiration from local cultural and natural treasures, features that are unique or rare and can make a statement. The magical aura embracing the fifth biggest island of Greece, floating on the eastern side of the Aegean Sea, a short breath from Asia Minor, is a great source of creative ideas for a truly modern wedding. Numerous local products, all giving off charming, seductive scents can add up to your special day details, offering unforgettable moments. The aromas coming off from locally grown and exclusively produced Mastic tree resin has been cherished by many nations throughout the island’s history and at some points Chiots made fortresses in order to protect the crop of this scientifically known and praised Pistacia lentiscus plant. Nowadays people at its native southern part of the island, organized in local cooperatives, process this raw resin into many different products such as cleaner pieces of resin that can be chewed like gum, liqueurs that can be offered to the wedding guests and amazing cosmetics for the bride’s spa before the actual ceremony. Local pharmacists have developed all these recipes for centuries and infused with their scientifically proven benefits the islanders’ luxurious lifestyle. Both they and their guests love to drink the infamous mastic or mastiha liqueur with its exotic flavour, chew the mastic gum for smooth digestion after each ‘Lucullan’ wedding dinner and feel the flavour and scent inside gourmet dishes and desserts. Along with this one-of-a-kind resin, many other local products can bring with their unparalleled scents euphoria to the couple, their friends and families at the wedding. A few ideas can make the whole picture for a wedding inspired by Chios’ aromas.

Just after the ceremony a small buffet can be placed outside the chapel serving local drinks such as iced bitter almond, morello, mandarin and other citrus fruit juices, diluted with water along with small desserts, based on almond paste or pastry, and scented with floral water, an extract from roses, orange blossoms and other flowers. Some of them taste like macaroons and the most usual ones in weddings are those called ‘rodinia’ and ‘massourakia’. They are either dipped into honey-based syrup or sprinkled with powdered sugar. Recently, a pastry shop made a huge wedding cake out of these locally made and inspired macaroons, piled up in a form of a cone or pyramid and offered as main dessert after the wedding dinner.

Chios is also known for its home-made spoon sweets, made of fruits, flowers and nuts such as orange, mandarin, bitter orange, fig, pistachio, cherry, rose petals and lemon blossoms, dipped into thick aromatic syrup. Those ones kept in small glass pots, covered on top with white linen and tied with satin ribbons into impressive little bows are usually offered to the guests after the wedding. If a wedding dinner follows right afterwards, then they usually place them for each one of the guests on the table next to his dinnerware set with his name printed on little attached tags. Guests are also offered after the wedding a special kind of stuffed-with-nuts-and-chocolate paste, hard-on-the-outside candies called ‘koufeta’ which in this case can be scented with Mastic or they can also be replaced with pure Mastic resin pieces, precious and adorable as they are. ‘Koufeta’ are usually placed inside small tulle pouches tight with a satin ribbon into cute bows. Those pouches can also be adorned with Chiot jasmine flowers featuring an amazing aroma, as well. Alternatively guests at the wedding can be given small jars with honey from a little island very close to Chios which is called ‘Psara’. Local producers have also cooperatives and sell this unique product in many stores both in Chios and elsewhere.

As the wedding party goes on people may need more alcohol and that would be the right moment for the famous wine crops of Chios with unbelievable flavor and scent from locally produced varieties of grapes, with most known those originating from the medieval village of Mesta. Other drinks that are usually offered in such banquets are ‘Souma’ made of figs and ‘kazanisto’ Ouzo which is also exported in many other countries. As it seems Chios has a long tradition in wine feasting, fully evident in ancient texts, coins, pottery and paintings.

The wedding dinner menu can be adorably scented with locally produced ingredients. Gourmet chefs from all over the world employ the Chiot ‘weapons of mass seduction’ which include goat milk, the famous ‘Mastello’ cheese, hand-made and kneaded pasta, and pastry scented with Mastic, Anise and other spices, traditions that derive from predecessors who were living in the closest Asia Minor coast. Inside small covered baskets, placed as centerpieces on the table, some also put the locally made caramelized sesame bars called ‘Pasteli’, for all those who crave sweets and need a variety of them during the banquet. Those baskets adorned with a fresh flowers wreath will look great on the table. Other ideas for decoration are Mastic-scented candles and rose petals around.

Women in Chios have been rich and this can be explained through the island’s long maritime tradition and their husbands’ activities, closely related to Shipping. Some of the most powerful and wealthy ship owners in the planet originate from Chios and live in Chios for a long time. There are also captains and many other Shipping professionals in this island. Their high income in combination with their long periods of absence from home, gave women a prominent position in the family. Especially in the past, women in Chios, acting as powerful housewives, did not work but stayed at home and took care of their children and of themselves. It is said that from quite early in history, women in Chios had their own spas at home, filling up huge bathtubs with water and rose petals or milk and honey. They had always enough time for their skin care and most of them are described to have juicy contours and velvety soft, fair skin. The last decades some local beauty brands took an extra step making product lines - based on this old practice and local ingredients – such as Mastic day and night creams, serums, essential oils, soaps and hair treatments. Needless to day, that the famous floral or rose petal water we mentioned before is still one of the best ways to remove makeup. Among the most famous brands is Mastic Spa with stores all over Greece, in the USA, Europe and Asia selling products made at the well-known Sodis family laboratories, and Mastiha Shop owned by the Chios Gum Mastic Growers Association with stores all over Greece, in New York, Paris and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. All these beauty rituals and products can be perfectly refreshing and rejuvenating for the bride preparing herself for the wedding. The final touch on the bridal look will of course be the bouquet and the hairstyle embellished with Chiot Jasmine flowers.

If you now plan to do your Chios-inspired wedding in your country then find all these products online and for the banquet get the recipes from the amazing cookbook ‘MastihaCuisine’ written by chef Diane Kochilas. Otherwise, if the wedding is going to place in Chios, we recommend Argentikon, and encourage you to take ideas from two other couples getting married in the island (www.benandasimina.com and http://ourgreekwedding.wordpress.com). There are so many beaches and seaside chapels that can make up the perfect, romantic setting for your wedding and there you can unify all these charming local scents with the saltiness of the sea water in the same way you are going to unite your lives as a happy couple!