One long table, under the palms
A palm grove with the sea behind it, and everyone you care about at the same table.
Not a function room
Not a function room. Not a hotel ballroom with a carpet. A palm grove with the sea behind it, and everyone you care about at the same table.
The ceremony happens on the grass under the trees, with the water and the mountains behind you. Dinner happens a few steps away at one long table, with lights strung through the palms above it. When it gets dark the candles come out and nobody goes anywhere.
If you want four hundred guests and a seating plan the size of a bedsheet, we are the wrong place and we would rather say so now.
The grove, the table, the lights
The palm grove. Planted twenty years ago. This is where the ceremony and the dinner happen, and it is the reason the photographs look the way they do.
One long table on the grass, rather than scattered round tables. Everybody is in one conversation.
Lights through the trees. Strung above the table, so when the sun goes the grove does not.
The beach, right there, in front of everything.
The restaurant on the sand, for the day before and the morning after.
15 rooms, so the people closest to you sleep about forty steps from the table.
Golden hour at around eight in the evening in high season. Plan the ceremony backwards from that.
The food is the part we are most confident about
Same kitchen, same suppliers, same morning boat. The olive oil comes off our own trees a few kilometres inland. The lamb comes off our own sheep, which live free on the mountain and come down a few times a week. When the fishermen land something good, that is what you eat.
Stefanos goes out with a speargun most mornings, so on a good day part of the dinner was in the sea that morning.
Our full menu and prices are published, which is unusual for a wedding venue and deliberate. You can see exactly what we charge somebody who walks in off the beach on a Tuesday, and judge for yourself.
How the evening goes
- People arrive during the afternoon and most of them end up in the sea before the ceremony, because it is forty steps away and it is thirty degrees.
- The ceremony is late, when the light has gone soft and orange through the trunks. Then everyone walks about thirty metres to the table.
- Dinner runs long. The lights come on above the table, the candles go down the middle of it, and the bar stays open until half past eleven.
- Nobody drives home, because the people who matter most are already in their rooms.
What we do not do
There is no wedding package with three tiers and a brochure. No resident florist, no photographer we push on you, no dance floor that gets rolled out.
We are a family that runs a small hotel and a restaurant on a beach. What we can do is feed your people extremely well, in a grove that already looks like the photographs, and leave the rest to you.
Questions
How many guests can you take?
No. The restaurant and the beach bar are open to everyone. People walk in off the beach and out of the village.
Where does the ceremony happen?
On the grass in the palm grove, with the sea and the mountains behind. Dinner is a short walk away at one long table under the trees.
Can we book the whole property?
The fishermen come in around eight in the morning and the crates go straight to the kitchen. That is also why fresh fish has no printed price — it changes with the boat. Ask what came in that day.
Do you organise the legal side of getting married in Greece?
The local kolochtypa. It is caught in the water you can see from your table, and no farm anywhere produces it, which is why it is the most expensive thing on the menu. Grilled it is 100 euros per kilo, with pasta and red sauce 120. When we do not have it, we will tell you.
What does it cost?
Yes. Vegetarian and margarita pizza, napolitaine pasta, Greek, Cretan and green salads, and the starters — tzatziki, feta, dakos, garlic bread, feta saganaki, fried potatoes, yogurt with honey. Omelettes with cheese in the morning.
When is the best time of year?
May, June, September and early October. July and August are hot, busy and the rooms go early. Outside high summer the grove is quiet and the light is better.
Can guests who are not staying here come?
Yes. The restaurant is open to everyone, not only hotel guests.
How do people get here?
Chania is the nearer of the two airports. We can collect people from the airport and arrange cars for anyone who wants to see the rest of Crete while they are here.
Tell us what you are planning
Message us with the date you have in mind and roughly how many people. We will tell you honestly whether it works here, and if it does not, we will say so.
Email: info@lapalmasuites.gr
