Ayia Napa and Protaras sit on the eastern tip of Cyprus, and that single fact makes them photographically different from everywhere else on the island. This is the only region where the sun rises out of the sea in front of you. Every other coast gives you sunsets; this one gives you sunrises, and almost nobody uses them.
Wedding venues in Ayia Napa and Protaras
In Ayia Napa there are Nissi Beach Resort, Adams Beach Hotel, Grecian Bay Hotel, Grecian Sands, Olympic Lagoon Resort and Alion Beach Hotel. Toward Protaras and the cape, Grecian Park sits above Cape Greco with the best elevated position in the region, and Capo Bay Hotel sits on Fig Tree Bay.
Away from the hotels, Ayia Thekla Chapel is a tiny whitewashed chapel right on the water just west of Ayia Napa, and Konnos Bay is the sheltered cove between Ayia Napa and Protaras — both are among the most photogenic spots on the island and neither is a hotel function room.
The east coast gives you sunrise, not sunset
Because this coast faces east, the sun comes up over open water and then travels inland behind you across the day. By evening it is setting behind the hotels rather than over the sea, so the classic sunset-over-water photograph that couples picture is not what this coast actually offers. What it offers instead is better, and hardly anyone takes it.
A short sunrise session the morning after the wedding — an hour, in the dress, at Konnos Bay or on the rocks near Cape Greco — produces images with light no evening on the west coast can match, and with the beaches completely empty. In July that means being on the sand around half past five, which sounds brutal and is worth it. If you would rather not, a first-light session before the ceremony works too.
For the day itself, the practical consequence is that late-afternoon portraits should move away from the beach and toward the cliffs and elevated ground around Cape Greco, where you still get warm light on faces after the beachfront has gone flat.
The churches
Ayia Napa Monastery sits in the middle of the town, a walled fifteenth-century courtyard with an ancient sycamore in front of it, and it is a working church as well as the oldest building for miles. It photographs best early, before the square around it fills up.
Above Protaras, Profitis Elias stands on a rock outcrop at the top of a long flight of steps, with the whole coastline laid out behind it. The climb is real and worth planning for if there is a dress and heels involved, but the terrace at the top is the best elevated backdrop in the region and there is nothing else like it on the east coast.
At Cape Greco, the chapel of Agioi Anargyroi sits on the clifftop above the sea caves, small, white and completely exposed. Ceremonies there are short and outdoors, the light is unobstructed in every direction, and the wind is a genuine factor in how a veil behaves.
As everywhere in Cyprus, what is allowed inside a church is decided by the priest taking the service, so it is worth asking the week before rather than on the morning.
Logistics worth knowing
This region has the highest concentration of large resorts in Cyprus and is roughly forty five minutes from Larnaca airport, which makes it the easiest region for a big guest list. It is also the busiest. Beaches in July and August are genuinely crowded, and a beachfront ceremony at a central Ayia Napa hotel will have holidaymakers in the background. Protaras and the cape are calmer, and Konnos Bay early or late in the day is quiet.
Ayia Napa’s nightlife reputation is real but concentrated in a small area around the square. Most of the wedding hotels are far enough out that it does not affect the day at all — worth saying, because couples sometimes rule the region out on that basis alone.
How an Ayia Napa or Protaras wedding day usually runs
These two towns sit fifteen minutes apart on the same stretch of coast, and a wedding here almost always uses both. Couples stay in one, marry in the other, and drive to Cape Greco between them for the portraits. It is the shortest distance between three genuinely different settings anywhere in Cyprus.
The one thing worth planning around is the season. In July and August these are busy resort towns, and the beaches and viewpoints that look empty in photographs are not empty at four in the afternoon. The answer is timing rather than avoidance: early morning and the last hour before sunset, when the crowds have not arrived or have already gone. We plan the couple session into one of those windows rather than hoping for a gap in the middle of the day.
The coast faces east, so the best light is early
Like Larnaca, this corner of the island looks east, and the sun rises out of the sea rather than setting into it. That inverts the usual advice. The dramatic over-water light happens at dawn, not at dusk.
What the evening gives you instead is the cliffs. At Cape Greco the last hour of sun hits the limestone from behind you and turns it gold against the water, which is the shot most couples have in mind when they choose this coast. Both windows are worth having, and they are the argument for a couple session on a separate morning rather than squeezing everything into the wedding day itself.
Why the water looks the way it does
The colour of the sea here is not a filter. The seabed along this coast is pale limestone and sand rather than dark rock, and shallow water over a light bottom reads as that turquoise in every photograph taken of it. It is why the east coast looks different from Paphos in a gallery, and it is the single most common reason couples give us for choosing Ayia Napa or Protaras over anywhere else.
Konnos Bay, sitting in the crook between the two towns below Cape Greco, is where that colour is most obvious, and it is close enough to both to be practical rather than an expedition.
If you are travelling from the UK
Larnaca airport is around forty-five minutes away and is the airport for this whole corner of the island. It is a straightforward motorway drive rather than a mountain road, so transfer times hold up better here than they do in the hills. Our guide to getting married in Cyprus from the UK covers the legal notice, the paperwork and which months to aim for.
Questions couples ask about Ayia Napa and Protaras
Is it too busy in summer?
At the wrong hour, yes. At the right hour it is one of the most photogenic stretches of coast in the Mediterranean and there is almost nobody there. The difference between the two is about ninety minutes of planning.
Ayia Napa or Protaras?
Protaras is the quieter of the two and Ayia Napa the livelier, but they are close enough that the choice matters more for where your guests sleep than for where you get photographed. Most weddings here end up using both.
Should we do the couple session on a different day?
On this coast, more than most, it is worth considering. Sunrise over the water and last light on the cliffs are both excellent and they are twelve hours apart, so a separate morning buys you a setting the wedding day itself cannot fit in.
Photography and film in Ayia Napa and Protaras
See more of our work on the photography page and our wedding films. I also photograph weddings in Paphos, Limassol and Larnaca.
Tell us about your day. Send us your date and venue and we will let you know if we are free — get in touch here.