"In Israel, there is only religious marriage so couples have to go to the rabbi," the groom, Raz, explains. "The bride needs special training for being a wife and a ritual bath. It's an Orthodox routine and if you don't believe in it, why do it?"
It doesn't matter whether Israeli Jews aren't religious at all, or are from the liberal Reform or Conservative movements in Judaism - their marriages are regulated by the strict Orthodox rabbinate, the top Jewish governing body.
Couples wanting to marry must prove they're truly Jewish - that each is born to a Jewish mother or has officially converted.
And that causes problems for some 350,000 immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union who don't meet these exacting standards.
Many of them, too, head to Cyprus to marry.