so a few months ago after our engagement party we flew out to turkey in boldrum to start the process of planning our wedding in turkey yay very exciting times and we thought we put together some info for anyone else interested in you know planning their wedding abroad in turkey or anywhere else because the information is very similar so if you've seen our turkey vlogs uh you'll know that we've been bodrum quite a few times rankin has been many more times than me but collectively we have a good understanding of the area of bodrum but we still wanted to get some extra help with a wedding planner now the wedding planner is gonna make so many things easy for us they're gonna look into the photography videography decor music lighting sound system makeup making sure everything goes smoothly on the day because there could be problems so wedding planning is obviously very stressful and the more that they can do for us the better so they will basically find options for all that kind of stuff and we'll have regular updates with them and calls and then we'll we'll basically pick out what they've given us some of the weather organizers that we spoke to um quoted us between 500 to 900 euros now this is something that we didn't realize but everything is quoted in euros yeah um that was a bit weird i thought would have been like turkish lira and yeah the current exchange rate like we would have got a little deal but they've it's not quite worked out that way now for most of the venues they will do their own catering now the way that that works is they will generally have their own set menus and you'll pick which ones you want then when it comes to the alcohol they have two different kind of packages yeah so that can include local alcohol so that would be turkish alcohol like local um beers local beers wines those kind of things and then the international would be jack daniels smirnoff like the big brand like you would the brands that like everyone else in the uk and all that you're not familiar with yeah but obviously that tends to be a little bit more on the expensive side the venues they generally provide a bride and groom suite for the for the couple or maybe one night two free nights and it's usually like really glamorous and very nice and this is where the bride and her bridesmaids get ready during the day by the way so this was the first beach hotel that we visited it was called daphne's it's very small casual um it had like a nice vibe to it but i would say that the grounds were very very small like it would have only worked if we had maybe 80 to 100 guests which wasn't enough you know yeah it was pretty small it was didn't have much privacy because there was um hotels on either side it was just basically very casual and it was the cheapest option out of everything we had seen yeah it was really nice but i think it wasn't what we were like looking for in a way so the next venue we went to is actually neighbors to the previous one so there's another beach um venue um and this one was called selfie and it was one of my favorites i think it was better than the previous in almost every way it was bigger it looked cleaner it looked tidier the palm trees are nicer the grass is nicer um the ceremony pair was the only night even though the apartments it was really nice because one of our considerations were either having just our wedding at the venue or also having accommodation for maybe five to seven nights and so with this particular venue they had ticked off both which was you know we were really happy about and it was mostly the fact that the grounds of the hotel where the palm trees were with the greenery and it just been right on the beach with the pier it just proper gave you that boho wedding vibes which i loved the only downside for this venue was there was a time like music restriction they wanted the music shut down by midnight and which is way too early that's when the party starts okay and they said you can continue your party you know on the beach they will set up fire pits and tiki torches and you can have you know your fun there or like a chill beach vibes um yeah um and that i don't know that this didn't sit well with us you don't want to be having a wedding and then you're having to like stop it at 12 o'clock so that was one of the only downsides to this venue but overall everything else especially those palms it literally sold it yeah yeah oh ringing this is a this is a really nice uh coaster where did you get it from oh thank you i actually made it um resin by ren that was so bad so casa de latte this venue was really really hard to find like the hotel in itself was in some back alleyway like my dad was getting so frustrated in the car he even made the remarks like this isn't a really nice hotel to come to with your guests it's not really yeah remember it wasn't yeah it was a bit hard to find hidden boutique but honestly once you go through those doors once you go through those first stores yeah you're like oh my god it's a dream it's a boutique hotel with only 12 rooms um and it's actually an arts gallery um so it had a lot of history like the building itself like the architecture was incredible like i actually fell in love with the actual building yeah um and the grounds for it again it was by the beach and the ceremony would have been on the pier um really nice hotel overall but the only downside i would say to this place that the outside um the beach and the ceremony area was a little bit on the small side yeah it's very small um but if you if you was going to do your wedding here you pretty much have the entire place for yourself oh yeah for sure so there is a lot of privacy but it is pretty and this was the only place that did the per head pricing plus venue higher that's why it made it so expensive yeah they were a little bit on like the bougie side because it was like an art center next on the list is another boutique hotel that my dad actually found it's um in between that bedroom and where our villa is and he really wants to go check it out so we went there and it was actually beautiful it was actually very nice proper one of those zen calming like yoga retreat kind of vibes just like plants tropical like vibes everywhere it was beautiful it's a bit of a maze going through them as well yeah they had a lot like stairs and going up and down but the overall boutique was really beautiful ceremony would be on the beach on the pier but the party would move by the swimming pool upstairs so there was a lot of like moving uh within the hotel grounds and the fact that the tables and the dance floor would be around like the swimming pool was a bit of a hit and miss like because imagine there's no dance floor and there's always going to be that drunk under that drunk uncle that is definitely going to fall in that pool yeah yeah no that would happen um so i just like it was again the problem with not having the facilities of the grounds within the boutique hotel um but it was a really nice place we also really liked the rooms in this place it was really nice but this whole package was pretty expensive now the next on the list it was a really big hotel but it was more on the budget-friendly side yeah and the hotel it looked a bit a little bit old and it's a bit generic it was like 400 rooms or something huge huge now they had a big terrace um outdoors which seems actually there wasn't much privacy because it was right next to the restaurant wasn't it yeah um but they had this stage it looked pretty decent but they had a second option if you wanted to do your you know ceremony and stuff on the beach no it's like the grass area oh yeah it was awesome with the palm trees yeah so i mean it was good to compare but we weren't too happy with this one this hotel was right next to ascar and it's called la quinta now this hotel has a bit of a history because my dad had actually showed this hotel before we went out to boardroom and suggested it for accommodation for our guests and when he showed me the photo i was like this looks really familiar i was like this hotel looks really familiar and it's like what is it called it's a liquid okay fair enough anyway so once we got there me and jay realized that we stayed in this hotel two summers ago but they had just changed their name so i think the um big renovation yeah they had a massive renovation so the rooms were much better they had an upgrade in like the restaurant area and the outdoor area but it was just a bit of a shock we're like wait we've been here before so this was one of our options mainly for accommodation but we did also want to inquire for the wedding and compared to all the other places that we went to this would have been a rooftop wedding where you overlook the entire bodrum like um marina and you can see the bottom um castle so views wise i would say it was one of the best ones i think location wise is the best yeah yeah because we stayed there before and you can get a very cheap like or six livers or whatever boat to the sea center yeah five minutes whatever oh like a quick taxi ride around the other side so it and right next to the gun bet for those party races yeah so it was perfect location that's why i was considering it mostly for the accommodation now when we checked hotels.com for rough prices of rooms it was very decently priced yeah that's why we went there when we spoke to the organizer the manager there yeah they and a couple days later they gave us a quote of something like double the price of what hotels.com and considering the fact that we were doing a wedding there as well when we originally inquired you know so i think we'd get like a deal or something if we're gonna get 40 runs yeah exactly but i think it was that change in um like the company and the fact that they renovated they were trying to just like up their prices um but we wasn't really happy with like the customer service that we were really getting there at the time um but again this would have been good for mostly accommodation because we didn't really want a rooftop um wedding like that wasn't on the cards not really not for me no it wasn't happening okay so the meridian now this one was incredible this was like the tony stark like modern luxury it was just really nice you get inside the reception huge open windows balcony view and the entire grounds it was [Music] they put us in their body carts and pretty much drove us all around the grounds yeah and they did give us quite a few options yeah so one uh three of the options that we were given for the ceremony was the pier um the yoga meditation dock which was beautiful it had a really nice view and at sunset i can only imagine what would be like but it was way too windy like even when i was standing there my skirt was going everywhere like i can't be doing this on my wedding day even my short hair was just flying everywhere and then the third option was the amphitheater which was my favorite because it had so much character and it was so overlooking the view and the sea and the sunset would have been there very nice very nice place yeah it was um and then the grounds for where the wedding party would be was private and it was all surrounded by palm trees overlooking the sea again and so i really like the fact that it was private um i think that's obviously yeah that was one thing that we started to realize in some other venues and like um hotels that you really didn't get a lot of and so i really like that about this area so we also inquired for accommodation at the hotel and it just came up way over our budget as much as we would have loved to have the wedding there and accommodation for our guests was just going to be way too much considering that some people might be coming for like a week or two weeks it was just i don't know it wasn't quite what we wanted for the wedding and for our guests but it would have been a dream it would have it would have i still dream of it now coomb was another one that i really liked there was a lot of privacy like you had your entire decking area it was really big right on the sea it had a stage had its own cocktail bar and it had its own little pier where the ceremony would be which is right next to you know where the rest of the hotel would be but they assured us that it was going to be blocked off yeah and you'd have your own privacy so once you do your ceremony there you go to the decking area for you know the drinking dancing eating all that kind of good stuff yeah which i really did like it had this whole like 360 view literally on the deck of like the ceo so it was beautiful in its views but i kind of that was also a little bit downsider for me personally only because everything was just in one spot and you're confined to a little corner um i don't know that was the only night downside for me but the one thing that the wedding organizer said over there is that every like single guest by the end of the night just ends up jumping into the sea and i was like yeah i could see that happening in our wedding if we did i would 100 uh jump in the sea at the end yeah i don't know about me in my wedding dress i'll push you so number 81 boutique hotel i would say was the biggest contender i think everyone fell in love with this home it was a favorite for a lot of us yeah it really was um i just loved the whole the whole vibes yeah it had a beautiful area for like the reception for the guests and the ceremony would be on the pier again and it had a separate second area for like the dining dance floor in the middle the cocktail bar and then where the after party would be next to the bar like it had all these little sections that flew like the flow of it between all of them just worked really well uh and it was on obviously the decking wear um beautiful views of the sea flowers everywhere i don't know it's just such a vibe very nice and even there like this the room and the bride suite was the best out every venue we saw it was really nice but you lot made it very clear that on the day of the wedding it's mine i would not even be allowed to go in there well they say that themselves for the brighter than the bridesmaids um but ain't it said everything of this place was just beautiful and the menu choice was really good so price-wise i would say that it was above our budget a little bit but i think for what we would be paying for and how much we actually love this place it would 100 be worth it yeah it's not like one of those things where you're paying a lot of money for you know something mediocre no this place had the quality and that the the price reflected that yeah we were really happy with everything with this place okay so that is quite a lot of um hotels we went to and and talked about each of them had their pros and cons i think my favorite ones would have been number 81 oh yeah 100 um selfie the beach one and i think those are my top two i did like those yeah top two i did like it but it wasn't like i don't know well for me i think for me it was just number 20 number 81 selfie and the meridian but the meridian's just a dream so we originally acquired for you know summertime 2021 um now this is very difficult for a lot of the venues because kovid was crazy at that time it's still going on right now but at the time a lot of these venues didn't know what they were going to be doing in the following year so a lot of the prices they gave were not a guessing game yeah so it wasn't even like 100 um and i think it just made us realize even more that we would rather postpone our wedding for 2022 at a time where hopefully by then uh we will be able to celebrate with all our family and friends that are traveling from turk and you know from uk to turkey for our wedding and for a holiday where we can all be in a comfortable position enjoy it and not actually be scared by yeah someone just relax yeah so let us know which is your favorite maybe your least favorite it's really helpful for us um if you are planning your own wedding you know hit us up a question we are planning to document the rest of our journey um before we get married eventually um yeah now i think it'll be quite a fun series i always enjoy these kind of videos and it'll be really nice for you guys to be you know part of our journey as always well that's it for today yeah hope this was insightful and useful or interesting yes and we'll see you in the next one bye
