Christina Hanna and Michael Dimos
July 11, 2009, Manchester, NH

By Laura Pope

“Michael took me to Boston on our first date, to wine and dine me,” recalls the new bride, who said they instinctively knew that night that they would wed. “We were so in synch from the start.”

Michael, like Christina, honors the big family dinners of their Greek and Lebanese backgrounds, church on Sunday and all the stories, passed down from generation to generation, that began in their fathers’ villages. So it made perfect sense to invite 400 of their closest family and friends to their Lebanese-and-Greek wedding.

Convened under the soaring, vaulted ceiling of St. George’s Cathedral in Manchester, Christina and Michael’s late afternoon Greek Orthodox Sacrament of Holy Matrimony flawlessly captured the magnitude of the occasion, which was two years in the planning. “We are the first of our generation in our families to marry and we wanted to celebrate with all the many customs of our cultures.”

Three priests presided over the hour-long ceremony, each with a special significance to the family—one a close family friend, the other a priest at St. George when Michael was growing up and Father Mahalares is the priest there now.

The bride walked down the aisle on the arm of her proud father, swathed in a hybrid Elma Reis wedding gown, created from two gowns in the designer’s 2006 and 2008 spring collections—a white strapless ball gown in duchess silk satin with a pleated front yoke and Swarovski crystal embellishments. The dropped waistline signature creation boasted a full pleated skirt, gathered into a French bustle. She finished her ensemble with diamond earrings and a necklace that Michael had given her as gifts and a semi-cathedral veil.

The groom and his six attendants, including his brother, Demetrios, as best man, looked dashing in their tuxes. The bride’s sister, Nadine, served as maid of honor, while two cousins and three friends stood as her bridesmaids. All wore shimmering coco/latte-hued gowns by Bill Levkoff.

“One of the best parts of our wedding day was the ceremony itself,” Christina states emphatically. “It included the crowning of the bride and groom. One priest blessed the crowns, another the rings, and the last one guided us around the altar in a Ceremonial Walk which allows the bride and groom to take their first steps together as a married couple.”

During the cocktail hour at the newly renovated Radisson in Nashua, guests remembered ancestors through photographs displayed at a special memory table, sipped drinks and nibbled on an array of Middle Eastern foods. A sumptuous sit-down feast followed, accompanied by soft Greek music played by their DJ and finished with a monogrammed, five-tier wedding cake. The bride created many details of her wedding and reception, including the church program, the table favors, seating charts and gift bags for out-of-town guests.

As making a grand entrance is also customary, a drummer led the couple into the ballroom playing a special song—a Lebanese tradition—and then the band played a special marriage song for newlyweds called Talet Al-Arrous Wa Arise.

“I did an Arabic dance, a belly dance, first for my father, then my husband and lastly, with my family,” explains Christina. “It’s a way we express joy and celebration and then family members put us on their shoulders to show everyone that this our special day and to show everyone that today, we are above everyone else.”