Sahne is the Turkish word for a stage, and at Urla Sahne the name is meant literally. The estate, on the edge of the Aegean town of Urla in İzmir province, puts on open-air concerts for audiences of up to 2,500, and its wedding spaces share the ground with that business of lights, sound and long tables. The largest of them is Küçük Sahne, the Small Stage, which takes up to 500 guests for a cocktail reception. Weddings here are built from the same parts as a concert night: a restaurant kitchen, a hotel among the olive trees and a stage built for live music.
Twenty decares of olives, with a stage in the middle
Urla Sahne covers 20 decares, about two hectares, of land shaded by century-old olive trees. Planting divides it into four areas: the restaurant The Guru Urla, a club for racquet sports, Doors Urla Hotel and Bungalows, and the event spaces. The estate’s own plan names the smaller corners a wedding uses too: a Panorama Terrace, a pool bar beside the hotel pool, a photo corner and the Grapes Garden.
The concert side sets the scale. Each spring the estate plans a season of open-air concerts and parties, and the event area has grown to hold 2,500 people. For a wedding the advantage is practical: staging, sound and lighting for a large evening crowd are already part of how the place works.
Urla, Klazomenai and an old olive country
The estate sits in a district with a long memory of olives and wine. Urla stands on the site of Klazomenai, one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League and the birthplace of the philosopher Anaxagoras. Probably early in the fifth century BC, the city moved from the mainland to an island just offshore, and Alexander the Great later joined the island to the coast with a causeway whose remains can still be seen. The island is known today as Karantina, after the quarantine station that opened there in 1865 and ran until the 1950s.
Excavations at Klazomenai found an olive oil installation from the third quarter of the sixth century BC, restored and reconstructed in 2004 and 2005, and the city’s wines travelled in their own style of amphora to the western Mediterranean and the Black Sea from the seventh century BC. The district still has about 600,000 olive trees. The name Urla probably derives from Vourla, the town’s Greek name, and most of its people were Greek until the population exchange of 1923, when they left for Greece.
Wine has returned as well. The Urla vineyard route links wineries in the countryside between İzmir and Çeşme, growing international varieties beside Turkish ones, and Urla Karası, a black grape once considered lost in the region, has been replanted in local vineyards. The Köstem Olive Oil Museum in Urla shows how oil is pressed and processed, and Klazomenai is open to visitors; both make good outings for guests arriving a day or two before the wedding.
From a small hall to a stage for five hundred
The wedding spaces cover most sizes of party. Grapes, a small hall, suits a dinner of under a hundred, and its garden seats 200 or holds 350 standing. The Guru has an indoor dining room as well as a terrace that takes 200 to 250 at dinner, and two smaller areas, the Guru Garden and the Backstage, suit drinks for 150 to 200. Küçük Sahne seats 200 to 250 and is the one space that reaches 450 to 500 for a cocktail reception. Beside the hotel pool there is room for 100 to 120 at dinner or up to 200 for drinks.
Because all of these sit within the same two hectares, a wedding can move between them without anyone getting into a car: drinks in one garden, dinner on a terrace or in front of a stage, and a later party in a third setting. A ceremony is arranged by the team as an additional service, as are a promise ceremony and an after party, and the estate’s photographs show ceremony arches set up on a terrace and on the lawn, and long tables dressed for dinner in front of a stage rig.
The team also arranges weddings from several traditions, among them Indian, Kosher and Persian celebrations, and organises henna evenings. With decoration, photography and film, lighting, a DJ and sound equipment all on the list of additional services, a family planning several events over a weekend can keep each one on the same ground and with the same team.
Dinner from The Guru’s kitchen
Catering comes from the estate’s own kitchen. The Guru appears in the Gault & Millau 2026 selection under International Cuisine, and it serves an à la carte dinner alongside a regional breakfast laid outdoors, made with cold-pressed, early harvest olive oil from the estate’s own groves and produce from local growers. The wine list leans on the district, with several bottles under the Urla name, among them a Vourla and an Urlakarası, beside wines from other producers, including a Chianti.
There are two wedding formats. The wedding meal is a set menu of a cold starter, a hot starter and a main course, followed by the wedding cake, coffee and tea, with drinks taken as a beverage package. The cocktail format replaces the dinner with cold, hot and sweet canapés, again with the cake, coffee, tea and a beverage package. Both include a menu tasting, a show cake for photographs, a room for the couple on the day with dinner, and free parking for guests.
Staying at Doors Urla
The estate’s accommodation is Doors Urla Hotel and Bungalows: eight individually designed hotel rooms with different views, and fifteen timber bungalows. The hotel’s outdoor pool opens in summer, a covered clay tennis court can be used all year, and there is a fitness centre. The wedding hosts receive 25 per cent off room rates, and the packages add a gift for afterwards: a two-night stay at the InterContinental Istanbul.
Twenty-three rooms and bungalows will hold the couple, close family and the wedding party, but not a guest list of 250. Larger weddings place the rest of their guests in Urla itself, ten minutes away, or in Çeşme and Alaçatı, about half an hour along the peninsula.
Arriving in Urla
İzmir Adnan Menderes Airport is under an hour away by road, and İzmir has direct flights from Istanbul and Ankara. At weekends the İzdeniz ferry also crosses the gulf between İzmir and Urla. VIP transfers can be arranged as an additional service, and there is an electric vehicle charging point near the entrance. The estate’s film of a wedding among its olive trees opens this page, and its film of Pınar and Serdar’s wedding shows another celebration on the same ground. For a different side of the Turkish Aegean, read about Six Senses Kaplankaya, or browse weddings in Turkey.
The decision that shapes a wedding at Urla Sahne is the format: a seated dinner, held on The Guru’s terrace or the Small Stage, or a cocktail party, which opens the Small Stage to twice as many guests. Couples who know which they are planning can read the Urla Sahne profile and check your date.
