Greece, Santorini, Mykonos, Oia, Athens wedding photographer

Are you searching for an english speaking destination wedding
photographer to meet you in Santorini, Athens, Mykonos or other parts of Greece?

Destination wedding photographer Glen Johnson travels regularly for weddings in Greece, Santorini, Mykonos
and the surrounding islands.

 

Watch these Slideshows from Santorini weddings...

  Lisa & Roger    Wendy & Michael

 

Before watching, turn on your speakers, then use the buttons on the lower right side of the video to go to full screen, and raise the resolution.

Images from Oia, Santorini Island, Greece

 

 

I've had the pleasure of visiting Greece three different times now to shoot the weddings in the town of Oia (pronouned Eea) on Santorini island. Greece is truly a beautiful country with lots unspoiled coastline dotted with quaint little fishing villages, and beautuful mountains as well. The mountain villages are my favorite. I've never seen a people that lived so simply and in so much natural beauty. Seeing it makes me sad to think of what we "modern" people have traded for our technological lifestyle.

I love getting to the island of Santorini or Mykonos by taking the ferry from Athens which only costs about 77 euro per person. You arrive on Santorini and then catch the shuttle bus to Fira, and then on to Oia. Oia is the classic Santorini town that you see in pictures and postcards of the area. White and blue are pretty much the only colors which must make it very easy to keep paint stocked at the local hardware store. The buildings are constructed almost entirely with rock and cement and almost all of them have the classic domed roof with a coating of bright white paint. The walkways are paved with Marble as are many streets and walkways throughout Greece. The main part of town is very touristy but contrary to most tourist areas, there is actually a wide variety of materials for sale in the shops. By far the highest concentration is on local jewelry products, many of them are replicas of ancient greek artifacts. If you're in the market for a gold piece that will really stand out when you wear it in the states, Greece is a great place to find such a treasure. However, the prices are not what you would call cheap by any standards. In fact, I would say that in general, nothing in Greece is cheap except the food you find at local (non tourist) food markets. The conversion to Euros makes everything more expensive for Americans.

If you want to plan a wedding for this area I can reccomend Sunset villas (in Oia) for your guests, as well as several small places that rent rooms in Finikia which is just a 10 minute walk away from the cliffs of Oia. The cliffside dwellings all rent for various amounts from about $100 Euros per night and up. In Finikia, you can find very comfortable and extremely cute little places for about 40-50 Euros per night.

2006   samples of Santorini wedding photography.  
2007   more Santorini wedding photography.  

2007 slideshow  slideshow from our wanderings around Greece and Santorini

Cosmo Bride did a beautiful story on one of these weddings.

Santorini Resources

Shirley Chiarolanziois a wonderful wedding coordinator that lives in Fira (on Santorini). I've seen her in action at two different weddings and both events were very well orchestrated. I've placed a copy of her price sheet here for you to view. She offers a full range of services and she knows all the locals for hair, flowers, food, etc, etc. I'm also offering a discount of 150 euro if you book the two of us together. See the pricelist for details. You can see Shirley throwing flowers in some of the ceremony shots in my slideshows.

 Sea Captain's House is a beautiful and very romantic place to stay

www.santorini-secrets.com will help find lots of details about the area.

I do have a suggestion for a hotel in Santorini that will save you some serious money. It's not the fanciest of places but it is right in the heart of things. I've stayed there every time I've ever been to Santorini and I wouldn't consider any other place. It's called Oia Sunset and the manager is a very friendly guy named Panos. The location is perfect. As you pull into the central courtyard in Oia where the busses unload, the hotel is just about 40 yards up the hill. It does not have the cliffside view. The rooms are very nice and simple and as you will see in the photos on the website, each room has a fairly private deck. One room seems to have a rooftop deck that would overlook the caldera side of town so you might make an early request for that room. Walking to the cliffside area is about 2 minutes and Panos is happy to tell you all about the good places to go and what to see. I highly reccomend this place if you want to save some cash. Seems like I've paid roughly 75 euros per night in the fall. I think most of the caldera view places charge 200 euros and more per night.

Finikia is another often overlooked place to stay. I personally find it extremely charming since it is where all the locals live and it still retains much more of the "real" Greece feeling as compared to the very "touristy" places along the cliffside. This is where I go to find most of the locations in the photos on my slideshows.


You can get hair and makeup done by Peter at Hair and Soul Salon...

Most people have the wedding night dinner at a wonderful restaurant called Ambrosia which I highly reccomend...

If you talk to Peter or Panos, please tell them Glen says Hello!

Good luck with the planning and I hope some of this helps.

 

 

 

 

My name is Glen Johnson and I'm a wedding photographer. I live in a beautiful place called the Willamette Valley, in Central Oregon. From that home base, I travel the world shooting weddings for clients that care deeply about having their wedding day captured as a story, told by an artist. I absolutely LOVE what I do. I love meeting new people, making beautiful art with cameras and computers, and traveling around the world. Sometimes I think I'm the luckiest person in the universe for having found this profession. My style is to shoot quietly and unobtrusively in the background throughout most of the day, and then work with you to create unusual and dramatic portraits when we've got a few minutes alone. My greatest compliment is when a bride looks through the photos and says, "I didn't even know you were there when that happened." Your style is bold, fun loving, adventurous and totally in love with your new partner. You appreciate photography as an art and you want an outgoing, friendly photographer that you feel comfortable hanging out with. You don't want to worry about being embarrased by an egotistical photographer who tries to take over your day. You're not looking for the cheapest photographer - you're look for quality and you expect it to cost a bit more. Finding a photography who can tell a story with a camera is of the highest priority to you. You shudder at the thought of seeing your own faces in the cheesy wedding photos that are so typical these days. And you don't just want 50 4x6 prints when it's all over. You want a LARGE collection of great images, and you want natural, unstaged moments that tell the story of your day.   As a new bride shopping photographers, do I have some advice for you! First of all, when you interview a photographer, perhaps the single most important thing to know is that it's very easy for new or average quality photographers to buy a fancy website that makes them look as good as the really great photographers - at first glance. The thing to remember is that most photographers will pick out their favorite 20 images from each wedding and show those on their website, but that should leave you wondering what the heck they were doing for the rest of the 10 hours during that day. You need to know that any beginner can get 20 good shots during a 10 hour day. So don't ask a photographer to "Show me your best picture." What you should be asking them to do, is.... "Tell me a story." And believe me, there is a HUGE difference between the photographers that can get 20 decent shots, and those that can get the hundres of great images it takes to tell the whole story of your day.   Here are some other things you should know about shopping photographers... 1 2 3 4 The slideshows in the links above tell stories. Each show is but a small collection of the images taken at that wedding, and I hope you'll agree that each show tells the story of the day. For more slideshows in HD video format, check out my YouTube Channel here. I look forward to the day I get to capture your story.