Love On A Santorini Hilltop ✨ Romantic Bedtime Story

[00:00:10] Hi there, Sleep Wave listeners, and thanks for being here tonight. I'm your host, Karissa Vacker, and tonight we have a dreamy, sleepy story to help us drift off to a deep sleep. Before the sleepy vibes really start flowing, I want you to think about one person in your life who needs better sleep, and I invite you to send this episode to them. Everybody deserves the gift of great sleep. They'll thank you, and so do we.

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[00:02:13] Hey Sleepwave listeners, Geoffrey here. If you love the bedtime stories on Sleepwave and are looking for even more sleepy tales, this announcement is for you. Introducing my show Night Falls, where I read original and classic bedtime stories, specially crafted to help busy people fall asleep effortlessly. Each story slows gently, guiding you to sleep.

[00:02:40] We'll go on mystical journeys through my series, The Falls, where I'll share enchanting tales from my past, exploring the magic of the falls and the unique people I've met along the way. I'll also share classic nostalgic stories around the fire, like Winnie the Pooh. With Night Falls, you'll drift off to sleep easily and wake up refreshed. So search Night Falls on all podcast platforms. That's Night Falls.

[00:03:08] And hit follow, so when it's time to go back to sleep, you'll find the show easily. I'll see you there. Tonight, we're going to be traveling to Santorini with a wedding photographer, Danny, who is a frequent fly on the wall at weddings and knows exactly which moments to seek out.

[00:03:32] Over the years, he's learned how to distinguish real, lasting love and capture it in his photographs. Relax, let go of the day, and let's begin. Danny leaned back into his chair and sighed.

[00:03:56] It was one of those sighs of complete and utter contentment, feeling at ease with the world. He was sitting on the terrace of his hotel room in Santorini, looking out at an endless blue sea that was brushed with the first pinks and oranges of a sunset.

[00:04:14] Every building, every stone, every wall here was whitewashed, and in the bold light of day, they were sometimes overly bright, and you had to squint through sunglasses. But now, with the softness of the evening light, everything was just ridiculously, impossibly beautiful.

[00:04:38] The sun glinted into his wine glass, a pool of liquid amber sending dashes of color onto the whitewashed wall upon which it rested. His thousandth wedding. Danny had just taken the photographs for the thousandth wedding.

[00:04:59] He'd started years ago, back when he traveled with rolls of film, all sealed into canisters and carried as precious cargo towards his darkroom. He'd taught himself everything, understanding the way light and shadow played against each other, and how to capture the swirl of a dress during a first dance, or the look of love in a groom's eyes as his bride made her entrance.

[00:05:30] There was nothing formal or posed about the photos he took. He captured what was there, what was real, and people loved him for it. His favorite images were always black and white, and he still took his old film camera with him. There was something about a deliberately grainy photo of a wedding that added a timeless quality.

[00:05:58] There was love, the image said, and it lasts forever. But over the years, he'd accepted the introduction of digital and color, and now even had a drone, finding new angles and new ways to capture the moments of a single day that defined the rest of people's lives.

[00:06:23] And over the years, as rules had changed and bands had tumbled, he'd had the chance to capture days when two women would fill the frame in their flowing white dresses, or two men would leap high in the air wearing Scottish kilts that flew about them as they danced. There was only one rule Danny stuck to when choosing his clients,

[00:06:51] because that had always been how it worked. He couldn't just be hired by anyone. They had to, in his mind, qualify. It was a very simple rule. Be in love. Be hopelessly, wonderfully, adoringly, and daringly in love.

[00:07:15] Whether fresh out of university, young and excited by everything life could have to offer, or wheeled down the aisle towards someone leaning on a Zimmer frame, an elderly couple grabbing the chance at something beautiful, Danny could tell from 50 paces whether it was true love or not. That's why his photos were so good.

[00:07:43] It's easy to take memorable pictures when the memories are ones people actually want for a lifetime. When they're so wrapped up in the moment, they forget the camera is there and they are truly themselves. That's why people planned their weddings around his schedule and paid for him to stay in extravagant hotel rooms such as this.

[00:08:14] His charge as a photographer was enough to cover an easy, quiet existence, and eager couples made up for the low fee in other ways. A private jet here, an outing on a yacht there. The finest hotel rooms, champagne delivered to his door, invitations to lavish dinners and parties.

[00:08:44] Danny could ease in and out of this life, completely and utterly satisfied, and with a feeling of peace that even the most dedicated yoga followers or gurus could never achieve. Oh, he had a second rule of sorts too. Today's wedding on Santorini was what had become known in the business as a destination wedding.

[00:09:13] Danny would only take on destination weddings if the venue actually meant something to the couple. In this case, they'd met here while traveling, each searching for something they were missing, and finding it in the corner of a taverna where they both happened to stumble one evening. She was on a mission to see the world.

[00:09:41] He was escaping from a relentlessly gray winter. She had risked it all, giving up her job as a teaching assistant, and scraping together every penny she had saved. Every penny she had earned from selling most of what she owned, pouring it into this year of experiences.

[00:10:08] Santorini was one of the first stops on her trip. It turned out to be the last. When you find what you're looking for, after all, you don't keep on searching. She hadn't been looking for anyone, she'd told Danny. A smile in her eyes and a laugh on her lips was

[00:10:36] the accidental answer to everything. And there she was, he'd told Danny. The most beautiful creature he'd ever seen. He thanked his lucky stars the weather had been so awful that year, and he'd finally decided, no, he could take it no more. Searching online for sunny escapes,

[00:11:06] and finding this little island. White buildings and blue sea? It looked soothing. He'd needed soothing. So, of course, they'd come back to the island to be married. It was her parents who had contacted Danny, their gift to their daughter on her wedding day. It was one of those rare occasions

[00:11:35] when Danny had known, just by seeing the look in the mother's eyes, that yes, this was true love that her daughter had found, and yes, it was a wedding he could take on. It was a wedding of 40 people, the perfect size in Danny's mind. Too small, and they can get awkward, with people running out of conversations to be had.

[00:12:05] Too big, and everyone can become a little lost and anonymous, with only the briefest moments shared with others. No, everyone had left the wedding today feeling a part of something magical, and as if they had played a pivotal role, an important piece in the puzzle.

[00:12:29] The first couple to arrive had been the groom's grandparents on his mother's side. She leaned on a walking stick, and Danny suspected her husband usually would too, only he was determined to stand as straight and tall as his back would allow on this day.

[00:12:57] Her arm was linked through his as they arrived at the church. More of a chapel, really, on a hilltop, with only the sea and the sky behind it. Danny was at the church as soon as the light crept into the day. He liked to watch everyone arriving. In this case,

[00:13:23] he could see the cars winding their way up the road to the chapel, seeing how they stalled and fumbled on the tight twists and turns. Sunlight bounced off chrome bumpers and windscreens, bright flashes of light that showed the progress of the cars. The grandfather had been driving,

[00:13:50] and he came right to the entrance of the chapel, stepping out and walking slowly, stiffly, stiffly, around to his wife's side to open her door and help her from the car. He led her to a bench in the shade, right by the door. As she sat,

[00:14:17] holding his hand and looking up into his face, Danny caught the sparkle of the moment between them, love that had created generations of a family. She seemed almost a little lost as she waited for him to come back from parking the car behind a line of cypress trees,

[00:14:43] perfectly positioned to screen the modern vehicles from the ancient chapel and undisturbed setting, something that, from so many angles, must have looked the same for centuries. Then, the bride's mother had arrived, along with the bride's sisters, and they had tumbled out of the car and walked across to the chapel, chattering excitedly.

[00:15:12] As they went inside, all three linked their arms in a familiar way, as if that wasn't just for the moment, but something they always did. The backs of their colorful dresses, dancing in the sunlight and disappearing into the cooler darkness of the chapel, were caught by Danny's camera. The tilt of a head, the slight lift of a hand,

[00:15:40] the half-profile of the sister on the left, shared the animation and excitements and love of that moment. A young couple arrived, friends of the bride and groom, and Danny knew instinctively that they were newly matched, very newly matched.

[00:16:06] There's an extra frisson of magic between new couples. All those feelings that perhaps this is it. Perhaps they've found the perfect person, and they're busy pouring love and life into everything they do. The girl was wearing a pale pink dress that reached to her knees. And as they walked to the chapel,

[00:16:36] she stretched her arm out straight, holding on to her man's hand, twirling and putting her head back and laughing, the skirt of the dress rising and sweeping around her. Thanks to Danny's camera, the moment was there forever now on film. A young man who he could imagine looked awkward in any other situation,

[00:17:06] suddenly freed to be happy and in love by this girl who danced and smiled at the skies. Of course, watching the people arriving by themselves was almost as much fun, and Danny would silently place bets with himself, guessing who would gravitate towards who by the end of the day.

[00:17:34] He watched as a lady anxiously went in and out of the chapel, unsure what to do with herself. Danny could see her silhouette sitting itself down at the very back, and then she would emerge a few moments later and stand to the side, looking out at the bluest of blue seas.

[00:18:04] She wore an emerald green dress with a bright pink sash tied in a bow to the side, and walked awkwardly on matching emerald heels. She was paying attention to everyone who arrived, sneaking glances across at them, but maintaining her distance. The emerald lady was greeted warmly by the groom's mother,

[00:18:33] and Danny guessed, ah, she must be an aunt of the groom. That was it. The two chatted in the sun for a while, and then the grandparents, who had arrived first, came slowly out of the chapel, and she leaned down and folded her mother into a hug. Danny caught that moment too. A beautiful woman, bending in her high emerald heels,

[00:19:03] reaching down to hug her elderly mother, with her father's hand resting affectionately. on her shoulder. He had to wait a while before he saw the lady's possible match. A man parked his car, badly, awkwardly, taking his time to line it neatly alongside another, and eventually giving up

[00:19:31] and leaving it sprawled across two spaces. He kept emerging from the trees, and then silently cursing himself, heading back to the car. The first time, he came back with a phone. The second time, he had lifted his collar and was putting on a tie. And the third time, he came back, having removed his plimsolls and replaced them with shiny black shoes

[00:19:59] that reached forward to an impossible point. His gait had changed, and Danny guessed those shoes were not his natural environment. Nor was the tie, the way he kept pulling at the collar. It had taken until well after the meal, and presumably a few glasses of wine, for shiny black shoes

[00:20:29] to approach emerald heels. Danny had watched him watching her for hours by this point, and was almost willing him to head over to her. It was in these moments that he almost wished he was the sort of photographer who faked shots and hauled people aside to stand rigidly alongside each other and pose,

[00:20:58] trying to break the ice with bad jokes and suggestions to lean this way and that. But finally, shiny black shoes had drained his glass, stood up, and walked swiftly over to Emerald Teals, who sat at a table alone watching the others dance. He'd clearly decided to approach this

[00:21:28] as one does a sticking plaster, get it over and done with, or not at all. Danny watched the lady's face, waiting for the moment he guessed would come. And there it was. A shy smile, a hint of a blush, a slight nod, and she took his hand and allowed him to lead her to the dance floor.

[00:21:58] That was the moment Danny captured. The moment she started to stand. The look of relief in the eyes of shiny black shoes, and the look of hope in the eyes of Emerald Heels. Would they last? He'd asked himself. Would these two who met on this beautiful little sun-bathed island be the real deal?

[00:22:26] He watched as the lady removed the man's tie, rolling it up carefully and slipping it into his pocket with a smile. And he saw how the man watched, mesmerized, as her fingers rolled the silken threads. Yes, Danny thought. These two would last. It had been a beautiful,

[00:22:56] simple wedding, more about laughter than anything else. The bride had arrived in a traditional Santorini horse-drawn cart, a white horse pulling its way slowly and steadily up the winding hill. An elderly man had sat holding the reins, his white shirt gleaming in the sunlight.

[00:23:24] Danny had lingered outside, watching as the simple white open carriage pulled up near the chapel. One of his favorite parts of a wedding was seeing the final moments between a bride and her father. There was something so sincere about the way some fathers lived these last seconds,

[00:23:54] knowing that there would forever now be another man in their daughter's life. There was love and loss all at the same time. words barely exchanged, but looks between the two saying everything. The bride's father helped her from the carriage, doing something

[00:24:23] he probably hadn't since she was a small child. The two started walking towards the chapel and then they'd stopped and the bride turned with a laugh, breaking out into something of a run in her long, flowing dress. She stood on one leg

[00:24:51] and reached into the carriage, coming back out with her nearly forgotten bouquet. It was the perfect choice for Santorini, for the island is defined by three colors. The whitewash of the buildings, the blue of the sea and sky,

[00:25:19] the bright pink of the bougainvillea that spills from gardens into every lane and every walkway. The bride clutched her bouquet in both hands, arms outstretched and grinned at her father, a hint of wry accusation on her face. And he, in turn,

[00:25:50] shrugged his shoulders by way of apology and laughed. Click. The moment was captured by Danny. Danny, of course, took all the expected photographs when vows are exchanged and first dances and the cutting of cakes and speeches. Of course, these were part of the package

[00:26:20] he presented. But the images that couples always chose to have printed to share on their walls forever were these moments or micro-moments as Danny called them that could so easily be forgotten. They forever showed how a person felt at that exact time. And Danny's skill was capturing love

[00:26:49] in all its forms. He was often asked to return for future events, anniversaries, celebrations, that sort of thing. But Danny was firm. If he was photographing people, then he was photographing their wedding. That was it. He wanted to be the one to capture the beginning of the story. Something that people

[00:27:18] could always look back on and smile about. The milestone moments they celebrated all came back to that day he had witnessed and the micro-moments he caught on film. That was what counted for him. Like this one, of the bride dancing with her sisters. While the two sisters looked beautiful, they had dressed carefully, Danny could tell.

[00:27:48] There was no chance of them outshining the bride on her special day. The three danced together, something they must have conjured up in high school, because one or two would keep forgetting their steps or hand movements, and they'd break out into ripples of laughter again. A little girl came over, tugging at her mother's skirt for attention,

[00:28:17] and the oldest of the sisters turned and beamed down at her. Yes, her exaggerated nod said from afar. Of course, she could join them and learn. And the little girl bent her knees and bounced up and down and jumped as high as she could and waved her arms and did some version of copying them and some version of making her own way through

[00:28:47] the moves. Danny caught the four of them together, three grown women leaning back into their laughs as a little girl flung out her arms and twirled like a spinning top. By this time, emerald heels and shiny black shoes had retreated to a corner, grabbing a bottle of wine as they'd gone. They sat there, heads leaning

[00:29:15] towards each other, learning and learning and learning this new person. Danny knew that, like so many before, they would spend the night talking, pouring out their hearts and thoughts and ideas and testing the other, seeing if they fit, seeing if they reacted as they hoped, seeing if they felt

[00:29:45] judged or seen. He never caught those moments on camera because they were too personal. The exchanging of information, of everything private, was something for them and them alone. Besides, he always reasoned, there are moments in life that don't need to be seen again. It was Maya Angelou who had expressed it so well

[00:30:14] when she wrote that, I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. These moments, like the two were having now, was all about how the other made them feel, and them weighing and measuring whether this was something they wanted to feel for the rest

[00:30:43] of their lives. The new young couple Danny had seen arriving at the church, her in a pink dress, him awkward in everything he did other than when he looked at her and disappeared into her world, were dancing too. They were learning how each other moved and how they could move together. A slight turn

[00:31:13] of the man's shoulder, and the girl now knew that he would stretch out his arm and she could stretch out hers and she would spin beneath his fingertips before being pulled back in. They were open and sharing and loving this moment and click, it was another one filed away by Danny. He leaned back

[00:31:42] into his seat on the terrace and looked up at the first stars beginning to sparkle against the dark blue of the evening sky. A line of hazy orange glow still rested above the horizon. The final moments before the sun disappeared to the other side of the world. So many times over the years he'd been asked if he had

[00:32:12] someone too and so many times he had just shrugged his shoulders and smiled back. Non-committal, not saying yes and not saying no. When you've seen a thousand weddings, when you've been witnessed to a thousand couples who are in love and see the ripple effect of that love on those around them, you know what you're looking for.

[00:32:42] Danny had never found it for himself, but he was fine with that. His life was filled to overflowing with love, more than anyone else he'd ever met, because all of it had spilled off the couples and poured into him. He would know more than anyone ever had when he met the right person. Until then, he was satisfied and content

[00:33:11] with his life. Until then, he would wait patiently. The moments of the day danced like a showreel before his eyes. The grandparents leaning on one another. The man dashing to and from his car. The lady in the emerald heels standing shyly to the side, looking out to see. Girls dancing and spinning

[00:33:40] and laughing. Men standing back and watching and thinking how lucky they were to get to love this person. the lady reaching down to hug her mother, her father's hand resting gently on her shoulder. The three sisters reaching back to their childhood and sharing the joy and love of it with the little girl, the nearly forgotten

[00:34:10] bouquet. The shared secrets, the way the sparkle in the bride's eyes had outshone even the sparkle of the sun on the sea. And this, right here, sitting on a terrace, now lit only by the stars. Danny reached over and poured himself another glass of wine. He would stay here for a while, he decided.

[00:34:39] He would stay here and watch as, one by one, the lights went out in the windows of the little whitewashed town that clung to the steep sides of the island. He would watch as the fishing boats headed out from the harbor, disappearing as dark silhouettes across the calm of the ocean.

[00:35:09] Thousand weddings. Nearly three decades of watching love being poured from one person into another. If there was one thing he knew for sure, it was that love was everywhere and it was real. And he raised his glass to the moon and stars and thanked them for their silent,

[00:35:39] steady vigil over this wonderful, beautiful world.