Couple to tie the knot at Gezi Park after meeting during protests

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

The couple, Nuray and Özgür, met during Gezi Park protests, announced that their wedding ceremony was set to take place on July 20 at the park.

Romance, instead of police tear gas, is in the air in Taksim Gezi Park, as a couple that met during the revolt is preparing to tie the knot at the site that first brought them together in the place.

The couple, Nuray and Özgür, announced on social websites that the ceremony was set to take place on July 20 at the park which has become the heart of the anti-government movement that has swept the nation, as well as allowing the happy couple to meet while attending to injured protesters at a make-shift infirmary.

Nuray, a trained nurse, and Özgür, a partially trained doctor who abandoned medical school, met in the first days of the unrest when Nuray turned her house into an infirmary to treat injured demonstrators, according to a blog post by Şirin Öten, a close friend of the couple.

The couple worked together throughout the protests, and is now looking to tie the knot at the park, with specific details already worked out in honor of the protests.

The ceremony will be conducted while facing the Dival Hotel, according to Öten, to remember the times Nuray treated wounded protesters that took refuge there.

Nuray’s wedding has been designed by the renowned designer Barbaros Şansal, who also took part in the Gezi Park protests.

The couple invited all protesters and those that identify themselves as “çapulcu” to their wedding at the symbolic location, with Öten’s blog calling on the wedding to be “the biggest wedding in the world.”

A small group’s demonstration against a planned demolition of Taksim’s historic green spot turned into nationwide unrest soon after harsh police intervention at the site. Thousands took the streets, including occupation groups and unions, in the days to follow.

The focus of the protests soon shifted from Gezi Park to a general anti-government stance, which was fueled by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s brutal response toward the protests and the protesters.

Following the evacuation and lockdown of Gezi Park, protests spread to neighborhood parks across Turkey, mutating into citizens’ discussion forums. The park where protests were sparked in late May was opened at the beginning of the week, but a strong police presence remains in the Taksim area.