Cappadocia Wedding Elopement in Turkey

Some places are too big to share. When Melda and Ufuk decided to marry, they didn't want a hall, a seating plan or two hundred guests. They wanted a horizon. So we met before dawn in Cappadocia, in that strange and beautiful corner of Turkey where the rock rises into soft, weathered towers and the sky fills, every clear morning, with hot air balloons.

An elopement in Cappadocia is really a conversation with the light. The valleys are quiet and blue in the half-dark, and then the sun crests the ridge and everything turns to gold at once. We timed the morning around that single moment. By the time the first balloons lifted off, Melda's dress was already catching the wind on a ridge above Göreme, and the whole valley below them was drifting with colour.