Selfless Newlyweds Spend Wedding Day Volunteering at a Refugee Camp

By Jessica Coen  |  August 5, 2015 | 8:00pm
In Depth

Around the world, weddings are about you, you, you: The bride and the groom. But this week, one charitable couple decided to fuck that and do something truly good with their time and money.

Instead of booking a DJ and cutting the cake and forcing their guests to watch their first dance, Turkish newlyweds Fethullah Üzümcüoğlu and Esra Polat, who live in the border town of Kilis, opted out of a traditional wedding dinner and instead spent their time in a Syrian refugee camp, where they distributed meals to some 4,000 people in need. As they had just tied the knot earlier in the day, the bride wore her lovely white wedding gown and the groom sported his dapper tux.

The groom’s father, himself a volunteer for a relief organization, came up with the idea.

“I thought that sharing a big delicious dinner with our family and friends was unnecessary, knowing that there are so many people in need living next door,” he told the Independent blog i100.

From there, he convinced his son — who was admittedly surprised by the idea — that forgoing the reception in favor of volunteering was the right thing to do and, in turn, the bride got on board.

“I was shocked when Fethullah first told me about the idea but afterwards I was won over by it. It was such a wonderful experience. I’m happy that we had the opportunity to share our wedding meal with the people who are in real need,” she said.

And as if that weren’t enough, the groom’s father covered part of the cost of the refugees’ meals.

If this doesn’t earn the bride and groom a couple of “Get Into Eternal Paradise Free” cards, I don’t know what does.

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