Civil Wedding of Karen & Robert
We met with dear Karen and Robert by the mail they sent us. They wanted to get legally married in Antalya.
After long conversations, we decided on a civil wedding ceremony at the terrace of CH Boutique Hotel.
June and September are the most beautiful months in Antalya as the weather is not so hot.
24 June 2022 was a beautiful summer day with clear skies. Our team prepared the documents and arrived at the wedding venue. The decorations were prepared as Karen requested. Creamy white powder pink. After the final touches, everything was perfect.
At 15:30, the clouds on the yacht marina started to get darker with sudden movements. Rain clouds were gathering, as the wind started.
The summer rain and a very tough storm started right after. The yachts in the marina started to disperse slowly. We were very surprised and immediately tried to collect all the decorations, the flowers, and the arch back. It did not look like the skies were going to be clear soon, so we tried to call Karen to explain the situation.
They were already on the half of the road…We said “Dear Karen, the weather is very bad, and it does not look like it is going to get better anytime soon. We can postpone the wedding if you want to.”
But dear Karen was so determined that she gave us her definitive answer.
“The wedding is going to be today; we have been dreaming about this day for 39 years! We have prepared twice before, and both were cancelled. This time, it is definitely not going to be cancelled!”
We were looking at each other, not knowing what to do… We were desperate for the first time in 15 years.
We were having a really hard time preserving our decorations at the venue in the open field. We were trying to cover the wedding decorations with nylons, and the wind was throwing them away with a very big persistence. We were shocked thinking how we could organize a wedding in such conditions.CH Boutique Hotel does not have an indoor venue for weddings, and even if there was, it was not possible to move the decorations. It was such chaos.
Dear Karen and Robert arrived at the wedding venue with their children and grandchildren. They were so beautiful, so elegant, and extraordinarily determined. Their morale was very high.
The storm lost its intensity, and the rain stopped. Unbelievable but true, the sun was shining.
We rushed back to the wedding venue to place all the decorations back at an incredible speed.
We were ready for the wedding ceremony.
Once our wedding officer and violinist took their places, we started the ceremony. Nature gave us an hour.
We should believe that if we want something the universe and the divine creator allow it. I faced that fact that day. The wedding ceremony was over, the photo shooting was over, and the clouds started to appear back again.
Nature allowed us for an hour and the time was over. We rushed dear Karen and her family to the garden of the boutique hotel which was closed with a tent. They were not able to dine with the view, but we were able to have them escape from the rain…
I and my team were having real stress trying to put decorations into their boxes and preventing them from flying away but we were able to get them married after 39 years against nature…
We collected our items, but we were dripping wet. We couldn’t stay at the venue like that any longer, so I went to dear Karen and Robert to explain the situation to excuse ourselves. They were surprised to see me all wet and wanted to take a photograph to keep it as a memory. Unfortunately, we don’t have that photograph, they keep it. What is left for us is an incredibly hard day but an incredibly happy family…
I lived to see that if you want something too much, you can get it.
Gülseren Özdemir
General Manager
