Wedding level: Very Turkish!

Wedding level: very Turkish!

This is just an illustration!

Few days ago I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to participate in a real Turkish weeding! I was feeling like I’ve been just dropped to one story of the ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ , and by the time you’ve finished reading this, I hope you’ll feel like too.

The whole happening started on the streets in front of the soon-to-be wife’s house. While she was getting ready, the people were enjoying the traditional Turkish music which was played by some musician with big drums, and some kind of flutes. But the main attraction was a boy, who was belly dancing in a big skirt. You may imagine this picture as a hilarious thing, but it wasn’t! It was ‘serious’, the boy was really good. I mean really good! This whole ‘party-starter’ lasted for an hour, while a man gave white towels to the people around. (Traditionally it’s like an ‘invitation letter’.)

Then the fiancés together (!) got in a car and they made a long caravan, with blowing horns, just like in Hungary. Our destination was Hotel Geruze, which is a classy hotel in the mountainside, with a beautiful view to the sea. Booking it for a wedding probably costs a fortune! But it seemed, the more it cost, the more fun they have. The party took place in the garden of the hotel, with a pool! (Well actually nobody was swimming, but it looked so cool!) Then as the pair arrived they set off fireworks (for the first time, but not the last). After there was a really short ‘dancing section’, then the ‘ceremony’ started. I put ceremony in ‘’-s, because it was literally two minutes! They both said ‘I do.’, and that was it! The next step for them was the first dance as husband and wife. And it started a new ‘dancing section’. During these we were filming because my host father is a photographer. After a while they served the dinner, which surprisingly was only one course!

As they (and we) finished eating, they started dancing. Again. Around 10 o’clock they stopped. The husband and the wife put scarves around their necks, and the guests started to hang money and gold coins to them. Then wedding photo, and a short dance and around 11 the whole wedding was over, which surprised me a lot, because I thought it’ll last at least three days. On the other hand I was really happy, because we’ve been shooting since 6 p.m., therefore I was really tired. (Though it was worth it, because I got some money from both the father of the bride and the groom!)

Lukács Laura, MA