A Beautiful Wedding for Sibel and Metin at the Renaissance Hotel in Raleigh!

The Renaissance Hotel is a great place for your wedding and reception. Sibel and Metin thought so too. Their wedding celebration was July 3, 2010 at 5:30 PM. I arrived with my husband Dave at 4:45 to get my microphone plugged into the house sound system (so nice and easy thanks to Oz, the banquet captain there.). Dave was my "roadie" for this wedding because my usual "roadie" Marty was on vacation at the beach this weekend. The room was all set up and the runner was in place but not secured. After 11 years of doing weddings, runners are not my favorite items because they rarely stay in place when walked on, especially if they are on top of carpet, grass or concrete. Anna Bobbitt, the Renaissance Hotel Sales Coordinator in charge of this wedding, (Megan was off this weekend) and I pinned the runner down on each end with some corsage pins I had with me. The material is quite fragile and so the hold was tenuous even though we doubled the thickness. After about half the guests arrived and walked on the runner, it was a twisted mess, so I personally removed it. It is just too dangerous and invites tripping and falling. The room is very pretty without the runner. (The best runner I have ever seen is a strip of white carpeting, bound on all sides.)

Lining the sides of the aisle were beautiful tall containers of water with floating candles and rose petals and petals scattered at the base of each one. At the "altar" there were two pedestals with very pretty flowers.

Shelley with Expressions of Love Florists provided these gorgeous flowers including the centerpieces on the tables in the reception hall. Notice how beautiful the bride's bouquet is and that she thoughtfully provided a towel to dry the stems when it was removed from the vase of water. On so many occasions we are searching for paper towels or something to catch the drips from the bouquets.

What a terrific wedding cake! I forgot to ask who baked it but I will find out. It was also bedecked with flowers.

After a 15 minute delay to allow late-comers to be seated, we began. Our DJ, Eddie, was a friend of the couple and provided the music for the wedding ceremony and reception. Entering here are the father of the bride, Sukra, and his wife, Funda. Sukra circled back to escort Sibel in.

Charlotte, mother of the bride, was escorted in by our usher, Greg, friend of the family.

Metin was a little nervous and I had to remind him to smile! We are next to enter.

This is our pretty little flower girl, Olivia. She is the daughter of the bride's sister, Suzanne. The room with all the people in it sure looked a lot different than the empty room at the rehearsal and she was reluctant to go down alone. So, Denise, sister of mother of the bride, who was also our honorary director, walked with her all the way. Then it was time for the doors to be closed, the music changed and the entrance of the bride and her father.

Here comes the bride! Sibel was beaming and radiant in that spectacular wedding gown.

And so, the ceremony begins. Sibel's mother is American and her father is Turkish. Metin is from Turkey and his parents live there. Unfortunately they could not be with us for the wedding. Dave could not get really good photos from the distance but here are a few taken with the zoom feature.

Metin and Sibel, congratulations and best wishes. I loved working with you to create your ceremony and officiating your lovely wedding. I know you will have great happiness and joy in your marriage!

These two Renaissance Hotel employees are the ones who were behind the scenes making this wedding happen. On the left is Ihab Beshay, Banquet Manager, and in the center is Anna Bobbitt, Sales Coordinator. Thanks to both of you for all your hard work and coordination to make this wedding a grand success for Sibel and Mettin. 

I want to also credit our photographers, Todd and Kristen of KMD Creations who were busy taking tons of photos. Ray with Carolina Wedding Videos was busy recording the ceremony. Thanks to all of you!