Alexander the Great Beach Hotel Paphos Weddings

Why the Alexander the Great Beach Hotel

The Alexander the Great Beach Hotel is a 4-star Kanika property at 14 Poseidonos Avenue, on the Kato Paphos seafront with direct access to a Blue Flag beach. Trade and booking-channel listings put it at around 202 rooms across six categories, including adults-only Superior Garden Cabanas with private pools and a 106 square metre Royal Penthouse. Our Alexander The Great Beach Hotel listing records a 4.7 rating from 1,537 Google reviews.

The pitch is different from the big all-inclusive resorts a few hundred metres up the same avenue. This is a mid-size beachfront hotel with five restaurants, three bars, an infinity pool, an adults-only Serenity pool, a kids’ pool and an indoor pool, sitting about a kilometre along the seafront boardwalk from Nea Paphos. Kanika announced the completion of an extensive winter refurbishment in June 2024, redesigning the restaurants and upgrading the public spaces.

For a UK couple, the specific draw is the view. The ceremony terrace looks straight at the Paphos fishing harbour and the Medieval Castle, which is the postcard shot of the town rather than an anonymous stretch of sea.

The Unity Terrace

Weddings centre on the Unity Terrace, a landscaped seafront terrace set above the beach with uninterrupted views over the Mediterranean, the harbour and the castle. It is used as both the ceremony and the dinner space, and its elevated position keeps it private from the rest of the hotel.

Capacity is where you need to be careful, because the published numbers do not agree:

• Best of Cyprus Weddings: up to 80 guests for the ceremony, up to 60 for the dinner reception.
• The Wedding Travel Company: up to 60, described as both ceremony and reception venue.
• Olympic Holidays: maximum 60 people.

The most likely reading is that 80 stand or sit theatre-style for a ceremony while 60 is the seated-dinner limit. For an 80-guest British wedding, that matters enormously, so ask for the seated dinner number in writing rather than the brochure headline.

Hire for the Unity Terrace ceremony is listed at £430 (€500) for hotel residents and £600 (€700) for non-residents. Non-resident pricing is set at the hotel’s discretion and released no earlier than six months before the date, so a firm quote a year out may not be possible.

Included set-up covers dressed chairs with white covers, a red or white aisle carpet, a ceremonial table with skirting, white linen tablecloths and napkins, cutlery, crockery and glassware.

Where the reception goes

Three reception spaces are listed, and for anything above 60 seated the terrace stops being the answer:

• Unity Terrace - up to 60 seated for dinner, outdoors, with the harbour and castle view.
• Corinthian Ballroom - up to 150 guests, indoors, with coastal views through the windows. This is the realistic option for an 80-guest sit-down meal and doubles as the wet-weather plan.
• Limanaki Greek taverna - an outdoor traditional venue used for receptions, with a stated minimum of 60 guests.

Olympic Holidays notes that for parties of five or fewer, dinner can be taken in one of the hotel’s à la carte restaurants instead, which is worth knowing if you are eloping with two witnesses.

Live entertainment, whether a DJ, singers or a band, is allowed with prior approval from the hotel and your planner. Get that approval in writing before you pay a deposit to a supplier.

What it costs

Kanika does not publish wedding prices. Two third-party benchmarks give you a range to work with.

The Wedding Travel Company advertises a ceremony and reception package from £7,159 based on 25 people, bundling a UK wedding planner and local coordinator, the ceremony and reception venue, a rose bouquet and buttonhole, bridal hair and make-up, half-day photography, a single-tier cake, a Cyprus meze menu, a two-hour open bar, a professional DJ, help with the marriage documentation, secure storage for the dress, a candlelit dinner, a spa massage for two and late check-out.

Best of Cyprus Weddings puts an average 30-guest wedding at around £9,400 (€10,900), covering the ceremony and registrar fees, venue hire, drinks, buffet catering, florals, DJ, cake, fireworks and planning.

Both figures sit inside the £8,000 to £15,000 band most UK couples bring to Cyprus, but neither includes the municipal fee below, and neither includes your own accommodation.

Two incentives are worth raising directly, both listed by Olympic Holidays: a 30% discount on the couple’s accommodation rate for every 15 full-paying guests, rising to 50% for every 20 full-paying guests on a bed-and-breakfast basis, plus a complimentary wedding cocktail reception with a glass of local sparkling wine and three canapés per guest when ten or more rooms are booked for seven nights or longer. On an 80-guest wedding those two lines are worth real money. Confirm they still stand for your date.

The legal bit and the Paphos municipal fee

The hotel provides the venue; Paphos Municipality performs the marriage, and its fee scale charges more for a ceremony at a hotel than at the Town Hall:

• £410 (€478.15) - usual marriage fee, ceremony at a hotel resort in Paphos, held at least 15 days after you submit the application.
• £545 (€631.92) - special marriage fee, hotel resort ceremony held one to two days after application.
• £110 (€128.15) or £240 (€281.92) for the same two tiers at the Town Hall.

Applications are accepted only in person with both of you present, Monday to Friday between 08:30 and 10:00, and nothing can be filed before you arrive. British citizens need original passports, a solicitor’s certificate confirming you are free to marry, plus original divorce or death certificates where relevant, and passport copies for two witnesses. Our getting married in Cyprus guide has the full checklist.

Guest logistics

Paphos International Airport is roughly 14 to 16 km from Poseidonos Avenue, about a 20 to 25 minute drive, and the 612 bus runs from the airport to stops on the avenue for a couple of euros. That is the shortest transfer of any of the main Cyprus wedding regions, which matters when older relatives are travelling.

The hotel is a walk from Paphos harbour, the castle and the restaurant strip, so guests are not stuck on site for a week. Set against that, couples must be resident for a minimum of 7 nights, which is a real cost to plan for.

Honest drawbacks

The dinner capacity is the constraint. A 60-seat terrace does not host an 80-guest sit-down meal. If the outdoor dinner is why you want this hotel, your guest list has to fit it.

The capacity figures disagree. Three operators publish three versions. Nothing here replaces a written confirmation from the hotel.

Non-resident pricing arrives late. Fees for guests not staying at the hotel are set at the hotel’s discretion no earlier than six months out, so early budgeting involves an estimate.

Seven nights minimum for the couple. That is a fixed accommodation cost before a single guest books.

Nothing is published by the hotel. Every price in this guide comes from operators and planners. Treat them as a starting point, not a quote.

Next steps

• Compare it against the bigger all-inclusive option a few minutes up the same road in our Olympic Lagoon Resort Paphos guide, or against the wider field in our Cyprus wedding hotels guide.
• Sense-check the total against real Cyprus numbers in our wedding cost and budget guide.
• Browse the Paphos reception venue directory for alternatives.

When you enquire, ask for one written figure that names your guest count and includes the ceremony hire, the reception room, the per-head menu, the drinks package, the accommodation discount you qualify for and the £410 (€478.15) municipal fee. That single number is the only fair way to compare this against anywhere else.