Bodrum is a town shaped by the sea. The Knights of St John built their castle here, gulets are built in its boatyards, and the blue cruise along the Aegean coast was named by a writer who settled here. Caresse, a Luxury Collection resort in a private cove at Asarlık, between Bodrum and Bitez Bay, holds its weddings facing the same way, on teak decks at the water’s edge, and wedding guests who come by yacht can moor at the resort. The ceremony, the dinner and the party can all happen within a few steps of the sea.
Halicarnassus, the castle and the blue cruise
Bodrum stands on the site of Halicarnassus, the Carian city where Herodotus was born. After the death of Mausolus in 353 BC, his widow Artemisia II built the tomb that was counted among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and made his name the word for every stately tomb since, the mausoleum. Earthquakes brought it down, and only its foundations and a few sculptures remain.
Much of the rest went into the castle. The Knights Hospitaller arrived in 1402 and raised the Castle of St Peter with green volcanic stone, marble columns and reliefs taken from the Mausoleum; by 1522 almost every block of the tomb had been carried off. The castle’s four towers are named English, French, German and Italian, after the nations that built them, and since a decision of the Turkish government in 1962 it has housed the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology. It stands six kilometres from Caresse.
The modern town grew from the water too. Gulets, the two and three masted wooden sailing boats of the Turkish coast, are built in Bodrum and Marmaris, and the Bodrum gulet is known by its clipper stem and rounded stern. Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı, an exiled writer who settled in Bodrum and wrote as the Fisherman of Halicarnassus, took to the gulets for journeys along the coast, and those journeys gave the name to the blue cruise.
A cove between Bodrum and Bitez
Caresse opened in 2015 and is Marriott International’s first resort in Bodrum, part of The Luxury Collection. It sits west of the town in a private cove, with a crescent of beach whose sand was brought from the Black Sea region, a teak deck along the shore and an infinity pool on a terrace above the water. The buildings rise in three storeys up the slope behind the beach, among palms and mimosa. There are 84 rooms, suites, residences and a villa, and every one has a private terrace or balcony facing the Aegean.
Weddings at the water’s edge
A wedding here is planned around the shore rather than a ballroom. The Main Deck, a teak deck that can be reserved for the wedding alone, takes the largest celebrations, up to 400 guests. The Residence Deck is a teak platform of 450 square metres bordering the sea and looking across the private cove, and holds up to 200. For a wedding of 25 or fewer there is the Private Pier. Above them, the Sunset Terrace holds the infinity pool, set over the shoreline with a view across the bay. Across the beach and the decks together, outdoor weddings can take up to 500 guests.
A Caresse wedding specialist plans each celebration with the couple, and the resort arranges flowers, the dressing of each space, menus, live entertainment, spa and beauty for the wedding party and the hire of yachts. Catering is prepared by the resort, and couples may also bring in a private caterer. For the nights around the wedding, the resort can arrange an alternative venue for the after party and beach parties built around a theme. Turkey has its own rules for civil marriage, so couples marrying from abroad should ask the wedding specialist early how the legal registration is arranged alongside a ceremony on the deck.
Indoors, the Sardinia and Porto Cervo rooms open into a single room of 172 square metres that seats 140 for a banquet, or 70 each when divided. It is the largest room under a roof, and the place to ask about if the weather turns.
Two kitchens from Paros
One of the two architects of the Mausoleum, Satyros, came from the island of Paros. Two of the resort’s restaurants come from the same island. Barbarossa is the Bodrum branch of the Greek seafood restaurant of the same name on the island, and La Zucca Pizza Bar, an Italian pizza bar whose sign reads Paros and Bodrum, sets its tables against a dry stone wall. Both close out of season.
Buddha-Bar Beach serves Asian fusion food and cocktails on the sand from midday into the evening; Boat International reported in 2019 that it made Caresse the first hotel in Turkey, and the fourth in the world, to have one. The Glass Restaurant and Bar, on a terrace with sunken seating, serves Mediterranean food from breakfast until late and faces the moonrise over the peninsula.
A weekend for the whole party
The resort sleeps up to 250, enough for much of a large wedding party to stay on site. There are 67 rooms, nine suites, six one bedroom residences, a three bedroom residence and the Caresse King Villa. The Deluxe Marine Suites are designed in the style of a luxury yacht, and the villa has its own pool. The Premiere Pool Residence, just behind the main building, has three bedrooms and two further rooms for up to ten guests, which suits a family or the couple’s closest friends.
The Longevity Spa has an indoor pool, an outdoor jacuzzi, a hammam and a sauna, with treatments that run from cryotherapy and LED therapy to rituals drawn from the world’s Blue Zones. Guests staying on after the wedding can borrow bicycles, train in the gym, which has Reformer Pilates with a personal trainer, or book sailing and diving. Children have a Kids Academy, with sports, games and fitness sessions led by trainers from Powerium Bodrum, and an art studio of their own. Further afield, the ancient city of Pedasa, the village of Gümüşlük and Bitez are within reach for a day out.
Arriving by sea, or by air
Private yachts and boats can moor at the resort for a daily fee, and the resort hires out yachts and speedboats for the wedding party. Boats can also berth at the Milta Bodrum and Yalıkavak marinas on the peninsula, and nearby Aquarium Bay is an anchorage from which a tender can reach the resort’s dock. Most guests will fly: Milas-Bodrum Airport is 41 kilometres away by road. Once there, guests do not need a car for the town: the dolmuş, the shared minibus of the Turkish coast, stops outside the hotel and takes about ten minutes into the centre of Bodrum.
Wedding packages are priced on request. The first decision is the deck, because it sets the size of everything else: the Residence Deck for a wedding of up to 200 that stays close to the cove, or the Main Deck for up to 400. Read the Caresse profile, open the Caresse magazine, see weddings in Bodrum and the Edit on Six Senses Kaplankaya, and when the deck is chosen, check your date.
