Big fat weddings? It’s all Greek to us

Watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 felt eerily familiar. Some say it takes a village to raise a child, Greeks say it takes a village to marry off their child. You don’t know 200 people? Invite them anyway.

Greek weddings are never meant to be an intimate affair.

Anybody who thinks that the union between two people should be a simple, private matter should steer clear of marrying a Greek, or any other European for that matter.

One hundred people is a small, immediate family-only wedding, while 200-ish seems about right.

Some say it takes a village to raise a child, Greeks say it takes a village to marry off their child, or something to that effect.

What, you say? You don’t know 200 people? Nobody says you have to know them.

At my own wedding, as I was about to walk into the reception room for the first time with my new husband, an elderly gentleman tried to quickly jump in before we made our grand entrance. He was side-tackled by the staff (who were about to operate the smoke machine, of course), and I remember thinking: “Why are there crashers at my wedding?”

It turns out the gentleman was an invited guest. He lived three doors down from my mother-in-law in their little Greek village in the 1950s. Silly me, why wouldn’t he be invited? Surprised not to find him at the main table.

Settling in to watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, which opens in cinemas this week, was like reliving my youth. It was a familiar journey into growing up Greek.

It’s been 14 years since we watched these two get married. All together now: “Wow, do we feel old.” (Pic: My Big Fat Greek Wedding)

My own dearly departed father would recite Greek philosophy at the dinner table and lecture my sister and me on how Ancient Greeks were the forefathers of mathematics and democracy. (Needless to say, he didn’t care so much for Greeks of our time). Every word that he translated back to Greek was met with an eye roll, as was his insistence we attend Greek school until Year 12. Thanks to his dedication to cementing our Greek roots, I blitzed HSC biology (it was basic Greek translation), and Modern Greek, which I had reluctantly spoken for most of my life.

As third generation Australians, my own children now drag their feet to Greek school (and speak the language in a bastardised heavy Australian accent).

The fictional Portokalos family resonates so strongly with so many Greek families across the globe, because as all-knowing and slightly-bonkers they are, they’re a family that has embraced their new homeland without forgetting their past. Why have beer when you can slam back ouzo?

Big Effie hair and Windex jokes aside (which to be honest, I just don’t get), the Portokalos family is every family who has left their birthplace to set up home in a distant land. Be it because of war or the opportunity for work, these are people who tend to hold tightly to their young family in a new country.

Truthfully, it’s more like a chokehold, but in a loving kind of way.

Opa!

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 is in cinemas on March 24.