3 hours ago
3
The Brisbane of 1963 was a very different place to today’s modern metropolis. The population was just 660,000. City Hall was the tallest building. Trams were the dominant mode of public transport. And on a hilltop above it all in Bowen Hills stood the Cloudland Ballroom – the spectacular site of concerts, dances, civic events and weddings.
There, on July 21, 1963 – the day before The Beatles’ debut album Please Please Me was released in the US – Brisbane hosted one of the biggest wedding receptions in the town’s living memory.
The papers did the maths: 560 spring chickens, 2500 fish fillets, 40 dozen magnums of champagne, 70 dozen bottles of beer. The cake weighed 12 kilograms, with five five-kilogram supplemental cakes. And if it seemed like every Greek person in town was in attendance, that’s because they pretty much were.
A newspaper clipping about the Samios wedding in Brisbane, July, 1963.
“The paper said 1000, but there was 1200,” says the bride, Stella Samios. “My father-in-law wanted to invite all the Greeks of Brisbane because he was that happy that his son was getting married.”
The marriage of Stella Manolesos, 17, to Peter Samios, 25, at the Greek Orthodox Church of St George in South Brisbane, is one that the community still remembers.
“I was at the wedding. I knew her because my sister married his best friend,” recalls family friend Helen Feros.
“She was a very beautiful bride, and so young. But, you know, she was happy to marry him. And they’ve been together ever since.”
Peter and Stella Samios at home in Brisbane.Credit: Morgan Roberts
Guests came from as far afield as Kythera, the island that the couple’s parents were all from, and where Stella was born.
Her father, Nick Manolesos, had arrived in Australia in 1952 – the same year that Australia and Greece signed the bilateral agreement for an assisted migration scheme.
Stella followed in 1957, at age 11. “My father thought, oh, well, this is a nice country to bring my family out. So we came out, my mother, my sister and I, and my grandmother.”
Nick ran the Carlton Cafe in Summer Street, in Orange – nothing Greek or fancy, just sausages, bacon, eggs and the like.
For Stella’s family, coming from an island without refrigeration, racked by world war and civil war, arriving in outback NSW was a revelation.
“I hadn’t had an ice cream before I came out, and coming to a cafe where lollies were everywhere, ice cream was everywhere, for me it was like a paradise,” Stella recalls.
So how did a girl living in Orange meet a guy in Brisbane, 1000 kilometres away?
“You’re gonna laugh,” Stella says.
When she was 15, she visited Queensland, staying with her aunt and uncle, Tony and Stella Cassimatis, in Ipswich, and then with another uncle and aunt (and another Peter and Stella), Peter and Stella Lahanas in Murgon.
Some time later at a Greek wedding in Brisbane, hardware shop owner Andrew Samios complained to a friend that he had three unmarried sons.
“His friend said, ‘you know what? I saw a nice girl that came up here to Brisbane for a holiday. Her name is Stella Manolesos, but she lives in Orange.’
“That was on a Sunday. Monday morning, my [future] father-in-law got in the car, drove to Orange.”
Stella first met her future father-in-law when she served him lunch at the Carlton Café. “He’d talk to me, and I’d talk to him. And after a week, he spilled the beans. He said to my parents, ‘your daughter is a very nice girl. I have a son, who might be suitable for your daughter’.
Andrew Samios went back to Brisbane, bought an engagement ring and gave it to his son Peter, saying, “‘If you’re not happy, you don’t like her, you just get on the next plane and come back to Brisbane.’”
Stella’s reaction on being told by her parents that a potential husband would be visiting was no different to what it might be these days.
“I started screaming. I said, ‘I’m not going to marry someone that I’ve never met! No way!’”
Peter and Stella Samios describe their life together as “blessed”.Credit: Morgan Roberts
But then Peter arrived in Orange. Stella was smitten. They were engaged within three days.
“I tell my grandkids these things, and they laugh and laugh.”
Peter returned to his job at Samios Hardware in Stones Corner (since demolished), driving to Orange on occasional Saturday afternoons after the shop closed, staying till Sunday night, and driving back home to Brisbane.
Meanwhile, Peter’s father planned a showstopper of a wedding at a cost of 2000 pounds – roughly $70,000 in today’s money.
University of Melbourne lecturer in global diasporas Dr Andonis Piperoglou says weddings were an important form of cultural expression for Greek migrant communities in Australia.
“They’re building a new family with the new resources and the new independence that they’ve got as migrants,” he says.
“And 1000 people invited, and the press there to capture it, suggests they were a well-established family, they had some place within the community.
“There’s something really beautiful about the way people can come together and follow certain rituals that they grew up around, that they feel continue a cultural legacy that matters to them.”
A representative from The Greek Club in South Brisbane says today’s weddings often nudge 300 guests, but rarely exceed 500.
Traditional Greek food, music, and dancing are still hugely popular at the venue, as is white Grecian theming and costuming.
“If you’re thinking of the plate smashing, we still do that, but it depends on the size of the wedding as it’s quite a messy process,” the representative says.
Big, fat Greek weddings are still a thing at The Greek Club – but these days the venue is just as likely to host big, fat Indian weddings.
On the morning of July 21, 1963, Stella got dressed at her cousin’s house in Annerley, and her father picked her up along with her bridesmaids, cousins Angie Cassimatis and Kathleen Contoleon.
“It was like a dream for me,” Stella says.
Wedding photo of Peter and Stella Samios, 1963.
The ceremony was at 2.30pm, conducted by the church’s longtime Reverend Gregory Sakellariou. The Cloudland reception followed at 6.30, with traditional Greek dancing.
“Cloudland had a sprung floor, they had a lot of Greek dances there,” Helen Feros recalls.
“Little kids loved weddings, because when the Greek dancing started, all the men grabbed small change out of their pockets and threw it on the dance floor.”
Five days after the wedding the newlyweds flew to Sydney and boarded a boat, the Patris, to start their four-month honeymoon to Europe. After visits to relatives on Kythera they continued to Italy, France and Germany.
On their return to Brisbane they moved into an apartment above the hardware shop, the first of many Brisbane homes they would occupy over the next 60 years.
Peter and his brothers, Theo and George, took over the hardware and earth-moving business after their father retired. Peter would also start a tyre retailer in 1990. Now, only the tyre business remains in the family.
The Samioses are stalwarts of Greek Orthodox life in Brisbane. In addition to a decade as President of the Kytherian Association of Queensland, Peter spent a decade as Vice President of the Greek Orthodox Southside Parish. Stella worked on the Ladies’ Committee, and they were one of the foundation families of the Parish and Community of the Dormition of Our Lady, Mount Gravatt, built in 1974.
Until COVID, they would visit Kythera together every second year.
Loading
In 2023, the 60th anniversary of the big wedding came and went. But this year, in July, the children and their spouses invited them to an intimate family dinner for their 62nd anniversary at the Southern Cross Sports Club in Mount Gravatt.
The trap was sprung. When the couple entered, they were shocked to find all their friends and grandchildren there, shouting “surprise!”
It was hardly a party of 1200 – closer to 50 – but it brought back a lot of memories.
“We’ve had a good life,” Stella says.“That’s what I keep saying to Peter. It’s been a lot of fun. We’ve been so blessed.”
And the secret to a long marriage?
“Well, you’ve got to give and take in a marriage, give and take. Lots of love, lots of support. Be there for each other, love each other – that’s it.”
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
