Carrie & Kris English Wedding In Turkey Antalya

It’s a difficult decision to get married in a foreign country, I didn’t know any close friends.

It’s a difficult decision to get married in a foreign country, I didn’t know any close friends who had. Internet research offered up little help and visits to travel agents left us with very limited choices in terms of hotels and options for how our day would be. It was a one package fits all approach with little room for manoeuvre.

We knew we wanted to get married in Turkey having holidayed there for the last 5 years, it had become very special to us. Having visited numerous hotels we had built up a list of what we needed from the hotel and hadn’t quite found one that had everything. Having returned from our latest visit in May 2014 from a hotel which we thought was ‘the one’ we came home disappointed and unsure of what to do and quickly running out of time as we had pencilled in the date for September 2015.

Following numerous hours on the internet we came across the Gloria group of hotels and between them they ticked all the boxes so we approached them about wedding packages. They put us in touch with their partner, Wedding City Antalya to answer our queries. Our emails were met with positive and informative replies, we always had a prompt response and this gave us the confidence to take things to the next step. We booked a holiday to the Gloria Golf hotel September 2014 and arranged to meet the wedding coordinator while we were there. They arranged for the hotel management to attend and took us on a tour of possible venues within the Gloria Golf and the Gloria Serenity.

After much debate and spending time at both, we felt that the Serenity was better for the wedding itself but as we had children in our party, they could stay at the Golf, which was much more suitable for families, but still attend the wedding. We gave the wedding coordinators 3 dates to keep for us until we returned to the UK to check flights etc.

We were very unsure about the legal process but the coordinator sent us a sheet with each step we needed to do and actually it was a lot less complicated than we thought it would be. We even sent them copies of our paperwork and they took them to the registry office in Turkey to check they were ok before we flew out with them. This was a huge weight off my mind as I was worried about us getting there and something being wrong, and once we were in Turkey it was too late to do anything. They double checked with us before we left that we had everything required, which was very helpful.

The wedding coordinator sent us various packages we could choose from for the day. We chose the best fit for us but even then we were able to take items out or add items in as we so desired. We changed guest numbers a few times and this presented no problems. They sent us pictures of how the venue could be set up in terms of flowers and table layouts, these were beautiful so we just picked one and no changes were required. I picked my bouquet, again from images they had produced and it was exactly what I had in mind. We also picked buttonholes for the Groom and both of our Fathers. The hotel provided a set menu for our wedding meal but we weren’t happy with the dessert, the wedding coordinators arranged for this to be changed. I feel that we would have struggled to deal direct with the hotel on all these details, whereas with the wedding coordinators, they do this every day so always knew exactly what we meant and kept us up to date and prompted us when we had forgotten something.

As you can imagine there were emails flying back and forth for over a year therefore we got to know Gulseren and Bayram well before the wedding. They were very reassuring, always understood what we wanted and shared our vision for the day. We wanted to get married at sunset by the river and we knew the hotel had fireworks on a Saturday at 10pm so we needed to be finished the meal by then. We also wanted to add my Mum and Sister to get their hair / make up done and this was no problem.

We met with hotel management a couple of days after we arrived, they had been well versed in what was required and had copies of our emails sent by the coordinators. Because of this we could enjoy the first week of our holiday without worrying about arrangements. The day before the wedding we travelled into Belek with the coordinators to prepare the paperwork, they kept in touch via email once we were in Turkey so we could always contact them if we had any questions.

On the day of the wedding the team arrived, Bayram was with us the whole time communicating what we wanted regarding hair and make-up and we had a golf buggy collecting me and my Dad from the hotel to take us to the wedding and they even decorated that for us. The hair and make-up was very professional and everyone commented on how good my make-up was on the day. The team were very friendly and kept us relaxed. I have problems with my eyes as they are very sensitive, which meant the make-up artists had to re-do all my make-up. Bayram made cold compresses with tea for me to put on my eyes to sooth them before my make-up was re-applied and this worked very well, it’s a tip I will be using in the future! They left us to do our final preparations on our own which was lovely as I got ready with my Mum and my sister and we had some champagne in the room and took a breath before leaving.

On arrival at the wedding venue it looked stunning, the sun was beginning to drop and the musicians were seated on the pier playing the music we had selected. The ceremony was exactly what we wanted short but also poignant. The table for the meal was absolutely beautiful and as we sat down the sun began to set fully so we got some gorgeous photos. The meal was fantastic and organised exactly as we had asked. The musicians moved to this area and continued to play which was lovely in the background. We finished our meal and then the fireworks started which we could all see from the French a la carte restaurant terrace. The team were always on hand in the wings should we require anything throughout the day.

In conclusion our day was absolutely perfect, all of our family and friends commented on the flowers, the table and generally the whole ‘look’ of the wedding. It was exactly what I had in my mind and most of the time what I have in my mind is not achievable as I have very high standards but Gulseren and Byram matched my expectations 100%. Many said it was the best wedding they had ever been to which I don’t think they really expected in another country. We would have no hesitation in recommending Wedding City Antalya to organise your big day.

We can’t express our gratitude enough for giving us the wedding of our dreams.

Thank you, we will be eternally grateful.

Carrie and Kris

xx