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NEW DELHI: For most people, their wedding day means cake, flowers, bubbly and varying degrees of second-guessing. The weeks and months leading up to that special day are dominated by wardrobe choices, tasting menus, seating plans and other logistical decisions. Couples and their families spend unthinkable amounts of moolah making that special day, “special” -- because you know, getting married isn’t special without confetti, coordinated dances, and what not.
A young couple from Turkey, however, decided to do things differently. They had a BIG wedding -- 4000 wedding guests, but that’s not what makes their celebrations different. Fethullah Üzümcüo?lu and Esra Polat tied the knot in Kilis province on the Syrian border. For those of you who read The Citizen, you’d know that thousands of Syrians have fled and crossed over into Turkey to escape the fighting led by a range of anti-government forces in Syria, including the Islamic State.
It’s traditional for Turkish weddings to last between Tuesday to Thursday, with the last night culminating in a banquet. That banquet for this couple involved 4000 Syrian refugees.
Hatice Avci, a spokesperson for aid organisation Kimse Yok Mu, told i100.co.uk that the charity feeds around 4,000 refugees who live in and around the town of Kilis, but last Thursday the newlyweds donated the savings their families had put together for a party to share their wedding celebrations with the refugees living nearby instead.
i100.co.uk says it was the groom's father, Ali Üzümcüo?lu, who originally had the idea to share a bit of wedding joy with those less fortunate. “I thought that sharing a big delicious dinner with our family and friends was unnecessary, knowing that there are so many people in need living next door. So I came up with this idea and shared it with my son. I’m very happy that he accepted it and they started their new happy journey with such a selfless action,” Bride Esra Polat told i100.co.uk: “I was shocked when Fethullah first told me about the idea but afterwards I was won over by it. It was such a wonderful experience. I’m happy that we had the opportunity to share our wedding meal with the people who are in real need.”
The bride and group distributed the meals themselves.
Groom Fethullah Üzümcüo?lu said that he'd never taken part in something like this before but it was the "best and happiest moment of my life: “Seeing the happiness in the eyes of the Syrian refugee children is just priceless. We started our journey to happiness with making others happy and that’s a great feeling,” i100.co.uk quoted him saying.
