A few months ago I was lucky enough to be invited
to my first Turkish wedding. The two people getting married I’ve known for
almost as long as I’ve lived in Turkey and see them as good friends of mine. So
I considered it a true privilege to be invited along to their special day. As
you can imagine Turkish weddings are VERY different to weddings that we know. There
is no food or drinks served, the bride and groom arrive together and nearly
everyone from town is invited and nearly everyone from town will attend.
Normally only the immediate family and close friends will dress up for the
occasion, and the night is mainly full of dancing with a quick ceremony.
As my friends who were getting married are a young
couple who work in tourism and have modern day outlooks on life they decided to
have a party a few nights before the wedding at a place called Smugglers Inn.
You can only reach Smugglers by boat and in summer Smugglers Inn is a party
every night. There is a bay near by, that all the sailing boats and gulets
anchor down in, so they can all come to party the night away at this nightclub
in the middle of no where. The 30 or so of us who went out all met at the
harbour at sunset and were taken out by one of the daily boats. When we arrived
the boys promptly cooked up a BBQ feast with salad, which was all put on hold
as they had forgotten the bread. So everyone waited whilst a small boat went
back to Demre to get bread for everyone. This would be close to an hours return
trip, but if you remember from my food blog, a meal is not a meal without
bread!!! After a feast of chicken, salad and of course bread the dancing
started. It was a mix of songs mainly from the international charts with quite
a few popular Turkish songs in there as well. As Turks like to dance, there
were not too many who were not out on the dance floor.
A few days later, which was the night before the wedding,
my partner and I were on our way home for a quiet night when the groom calls
and says “8pm, the brides house, you must come”! Not knowing what to expect we
rock up to the brides family home where it was just the grooms and brides
family with a few very close friends. The bride was dressed in a beautiful red and
gold embroidery dress and the groom looked pretty smart in his suit. It’s a
night known as henna night and it’s normally just the girls having a party with
the bride where they paint henna on their hands. I know there would be some
symbolic reason for this, which I’m not sure of, but I do know it’s all part of
the wedding tradition. Everyone dances A LOT and all the family joins in; young
and old. We didn’t stay too long, but what I did witness was good fun and a
beautiful sense of tradition still alive.
The night of the wedding, you would think I was the
bride as I was a little nervous to say the least. Firstly I really didn’t know
what would be appropriate to wear.
Earlier this year I attended a wedding in the UK, so I had bought back
the shoes and dress from that wedding hoping it would be suitable. As I
mentioned earlier, it’s really only close family and friends who get dressed
up, everyone else can come in jeans, shirts, casual clothes; it doesn’t matter
as they normally will only stay an hour or so. Those who do get dressed up will
normally hire a dress for the occasion (think formal evening gown dresses) and get
their make up and hair done at the hairdressers. I was thinking, would I look
out of place in my summer style wrap around dress? I really wasn’t sure, but good
chance I was going to be the only foreigner there anyhow, so would it really have
mattered what I wore, I was probably still going to stand out anyhow.
The other reason I was feeling the nerves a little
was although I have never attended a Turkish wedding before, I did know that it
involved A LOT of dancing – Turkish style. I’m the kind of person that will
dance if I really like the music, but if I don’t really like it or don’t really
know it, then I’m really happy to just sit and watch. At a Turkish wedding you
have no choice! You have to get up and join in or you are pretty much dragged
up. So a glass or two of wine before I left the house and I felt like I could
face this! A little Dutch courage can go a long way.
My partner (all suited up himself) and I left for
the wedding and before the venue we found ourselves at the brides hairdressers where
the bride and groom were waiting till it was time to go, with a few close
friends. When the time came, the groom and bride left together in a decorated
car and we all drove through the streets of town as a small convoy beeping our
horns, following them to the venue. When they arrived to the reception there were
fireworks and everyone was inside sitting and waiting. The bride and groom walked
in together and performed a quick dance before they were seated and a small
ceremony took place to make their marriage official. They then did another
dance where other couples joined in and then the Turkish dancing started. Early
in the evening, there were a few more traditions that were carried out. There was
a cake that was cut and shared around, the men all danced whilst the bride and the
rest of the women sat and watched and then there was the chance to give your
gift to the couple. Normally you either pin money on the bride or groom or give
the bride gold bracelets. Everyone who wants to give a gift will do so and then
most of the people who have come from the town left and it was just family and
close friends who stayed on into the evening and danced the night away!!!
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