Cypriot wedding traditions: the bed, the red sash and the money dance

A few days before the wedding, the couple's new bed is made in front of family and friends. Women of the family, often the mothers and godmothers, lay the fresh linen, sew a red ribbon across it in the shape of a cross, and dance around it to the violin. Guests throw money, rice and rose petals onto the bed for luck and prosperity, and a baby is rolled across it as a wish for children. It is an afternoon of music, sweets and laughter, and in villages the whole street comes.

On the wedding morning, musicians play the old wedding tunes on the violin and the lute while the bride and the groom are dressed, each at their own family home. The groom is shaved by his koumbaros, his sponsor. Family members pass a red sash three times around the bride's waist, and the groom's, an old wish for a fruitful marriage, and dried olive leaves are burned and the smoke passed over the couple against the evil eye.

It is often the most emotional hour of the day, with the closest family crowded into one room.

In villages the groom still walks to the bride's house and they walk to church together, behind the violin and the lute, the guests following. The service is the Greek Orthodox one, with the crowns, the common cup and the walk three times round the table.

After the church, the couple and both sets of parents stand in a line and every guest passes to congratulate them: "na zisete", may you live long, and "na sas zisoun" to the parents. Guests give their gift, usually money in an envelope, and receive a bonbonnière of koufeta, sugared almonds in an odd number. With several hundred guests, and Cypriot weddings often have that many, the line can take an hour.

At the reception, during the couple's dance, guests come up and pin banknotes to their clothes, or tuck them in, until the bride's dress and the groom's jacket are covered. It is loud, quick and full of laughter. Some couples now ask guests to drop the notes into a bag or a box instead.

Resi, wheat cooked for hours in a meat broth, is the traditional wedding dish, cooked in large pots by the families. Then souvla over charcoal, a long meze, and sweets: loukoumades, koulourakia and pastelli.

• The bed: an afternoon with the closest family, a violinist and something sweet, the day before.
• The dressing: a musician playing while you get ready, with the red sash tied by the people closest to you.
• The line: a short welcome line after the ceremony, so you speak to every guest once.
• The money dance, or a wishing box that guests fill during your first dance.
• Koufeta for every guest, in odd numbers.

Explain the ones you keep on the invitation's pages or in a printed order of the day. Guests from abroad enjoy a custom much more when they know what it means.