June | 2014 | Emily Annandale Weddings

It’s been a little while since I did a personal blog (it has been a very busy start to the wedding season here in Cyprus), but almost a year on since my own wedding, I am very excited to share this one with you all!

Last weekend, my husband and I decided to take a final trip to Paphos (Cyprus) before we leave the island and head back over to ‘Mud Island’ (UK) in a few months time. I had seen so many incredible ‘Trash the Dress’ photo shoots over the past year and decided that it was something we had to do whilst we were still in this incredible place (sun, sea sand…beautiful!).

We were reunited with out fantastic wedding photographer, Charalambos (Pambis) Iacovou – from Fotokinisi – for the photo shoot, and he had great ideas and locations for us – he was really excited about the shoot which made us feel completely comfortable in our decision to choose him again…and made us really excited!

Before our photo shoot, I took a trip just outside of Paphos, to visit the lovely Alisha Owen (Tips and Toes Cyprus) who was my hair and makeup artist for my wedding last year, and so kindly (after an exhausting, busy week AND on a Sunday) offered to do my makeup for the photo shoot – a fantastic decision (after hours of splashing about and swimming underwater, my makeup was still in place after I had a shower that evening!).

We headed off in the late afternoon along a dirt road toward the Adonis Baths (Baths of Aphrodite) – where according to Greek Mythology, Adonis (God of Beauty) and Aphrodite (Goddess of Love, Pleasure and Procreation) had many children together. Having never traveled to this part of the island before, we were amazed by the beautiful waterfall and the crystal clear ‘baths’ – such a unique and unusual location for a Trash the Dress photo shoot.

It is a very interesting place, oozing Greek mythology, and also happens to be the place where a Cypriot reality show version of ‘Next Top Model’ holds their raunchy photo shoots!

We were kindly given permission to swim and climb the trees!

Cypriot Models Reality Show – Photo Shoot [Instagram]

Whilst heading down the road toward the Adonis Baths, Pambis spotted a beautiful field that was golden and glistening in the afternoon light. He ushered us out of the car and I quickly changed into my wedding dress (in the sweltering heat at the side of the road) as we ran into the field for our first shoot location.

[Please do not use any images without my permission]

As we arrived at the waterfalls, and after another quick dress change (I had a new, shorter dress that was more appropriate for jumping into the water, climbing tress and what not!) we had strange glares from the few onlookers who had already braved the freezing waters of the Adonis baths (May is quite warm in Cyprus, but the spring mountain water was still icy) and congratulated us on our marriage (it was too confusing to explain the reason why we had decided to play wedding dress up again) but Pambis quickly explained to the onlookers why this strange man and woman were climbing a tree dressed in their wedding attire, and about to jump into the freezing Adonis baths!

Tip: Don’t try climbing trees in a long dress, it is extremely difficult to hold your dress up whilst trying not to fall out of the tree.

We had so much fun jumping into the water and flailing about (as all of the onlookers were now taking photographs of us as well), but were quite pleased to get out of the water and change out of our sopping, freezing wet clothes afterwards, to head onto our next location.

If you are planning to wed in Cyprus, and are looking for somewhere off the beaten track for an intimate wedding, the Adonis Baths is an incredible, private location and would make a stunning backdrop for your wedding – have a look at their website for more information.

Next, we headed toward the Akamas (named after an Athenian warrior, who arrived there after the Trojan war), a beautiful, untouched peninsula on the Western coast that is mostly inaccessible by road (aside from a few beaches). We wanted to go somewhere that we hadn’t been before and that wasn’t as common and popular as Aphrodite’s Rock (Kouklia) or Cape Greko (Protaras). Pambis found a lovely beach, with a cliff backdrop beside the beautiful sunset where we really trashed the dress – swimming, running, rolling about, covering ourselves in sand and seaweed and having a really great time splashing about! I must admit, the photos do look beautiful, but running and swimming in a ,now very very heavy, near to 10kg (maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but it certainly felt it)dress is extremely difficult, and I had to be saved from the waves several times by the husband as my feet got caught up in the chiffon and I got dragged down by the weight of the dress (luckily the Mediterranean sea doesn’t really have tides, or I would be long gone by now).

After a final change into dry, non-wedding clothes, we made our way back to Paphos for a well-earned shower, and over the next few days eagerly awaited our photo album to be put onto Pambis’ website – Fotokinisi. We were stunned, to say the least, when we saw the photographs – Pambis captured some truly incredible memories for us, and we had so much fun doing it.

Brides and Grooms….if you are getting married overseas – a destination wedding perhaps – or even if you aren’t, doing something fun like this is a great way to rekindle the feelings of your wedding day and all of the memories. Whether you have a trash the dress photo shoot the day after your wedding, or a year after your wedding, it is the perfect way to de-stress (the build up to your wedding day can realistically be so exhausting and time-consuming) and take some time for just you and your husband or wife and have some much deserved, relaxing fun!

Of course all dresses are different, and will react differently to water – so, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend doing this with an extremely expensive or big, heavy gown, but perhaps you could get a second dress to splash around in ( I bought a spare Monsoon dress, so that we could go to two different water locations – and my husband had two sets of his wedding attire, left over from our groomsmen).

I obviously wasn’t going to wear my wedding dress again, but I also never had any intention of selling it or getting rid of it, so this was an easy decision for me. I knew that there were risks involved with getting the dress wet etc, but I wasn’t overly worried if something did happen to it. Luckily, I tempted fate and threw it in the washing machine when I got home, and my dress has come out looking just a gleaming, white and beautiful as it did when I first bought it…..so I’ll hang it up in my cupboard again for another rainy day….

Dress (1) : Monsoon

Dress (2): Designed by Emily Annandale & created by Panda and Shamrock (Etsy)

Flower Garland: Fairytale Weeds (Etsy)

Jewelry: white beaded, gold ‘Africa’ bracelets by Lalesso; anklet by Marine Blue Designs

Hair by Emily Annandale

Makeup by Alisha Owen (Tips and Toes Cyprus)

Photography by Charalambos Iacovou – Fotokinisi

Photo Editing (on a limited selection of photographs) by Christopher Waddell Photography