So…weddings seem to be the theme of the week! I enjoyed watching a few bits of the royal wedding. Being away from it all gives me a strange fondness for ceremony and traditions, though I am sure if lived there I would be sick to death of it. I had to laugh at the comparisons between this wedding and Charles and Diana’s – all of which suggested that the signs from this one were much better. But I don’t remember anyone at the time suggesting that the future for Charles and Di was anything less than wonderful. Then again, I didn’t pay much attention to that one either – I was fourteen at the time and thought she must be mad to be marrying someone SO old!
There are a lot of customs surrounding Turkish weddings. Some of them are no longer in favour – understandable when you learn that weddings traditionally lasted forty days! In villages they still often last three days, starting with the groom going with a group of his relatives to collect the bride from her home!
In towns, the celebrations usually include a henna party the night before the wedding, when the bride celebrates her last night in her parental home with her female relatives. The following evening the wedding ceremony takes place. Both involve a lot of dancing, a very large cake (six or seven tiers is the norm) and a lot of noise from the ‘davul’ (drum) and ‘zurna’ – a flute-type instrument with sounds, to my ear at least, like a large and very angry mosquito. Oh – and when they get really excited they tend to fire shots from guns, supposedly into the air though if there is raki involved too things occasionally end rather badly.
One of the truly amazing things about Turkish weddings, when compared to the UK, is that they are arranged and done in just a few weeks. The wedding we went to last weekend, a very smart affair in Tuana Beach Club with a popular local singer and musicians, was arranged in three weeks! And you don’t have to spend ages thinking what to buy the happy couple because the tradition is to pin gold or money on them so they can go and buy what they need…much more sensible.
 |
| Our wedding at Montana Hotel |
We had a wedding that was a mixture of English and Turkish – as were the guests. We started with drinks around the pool at Montana Hotel (above Ölüdeniz) where we did the official signing of the register. Tradition says that whoever treads first on the other’s foot at this point will be the ‘boss’ at home. And that was me! We then took over the hotel restaurant for a meal and – of course – a lot of dancing. The belly dancer was a nice change for the English guests!
Fethiye is now a popular place for weddings, with the lagoon at Ölüdeniz and weddings aboard gulets being particularly favoured. I recently investigated wedding options for a friend, including a hotel wedding in Çalış, a beach wedding at Ölüdeniz and a gulet wedding. The prices varied a lot and some of the people involved seemed to me to be charging a bit more than necessary but it’s certainly still possible to have a lovely wedding here at a reasonable price.
We even held a wedding at Poppy a few years ago for our neighbour’s son. A friend who does wedding organization did the decorations and we did the rest. Now if we could just have a pool that converted to a dance floor….!
 |
| Poppy decorated for a wedding |
