Restored cave dwellings and stone houses on the slope of Uçhisar’s castle rock, filled with catalogued antiquities and facing Pigeon Valley. One of the most romantic places in Turkey for a sunrise bridal portrait.
Photo: Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
14 yearsLeading every bridal look since 20121000+ bridesStyled in India and for brides flying inIndia-basedFlies from Pune to your destinationTravel & visaPaid by the client, quoted separately
Please read first
Based in Pune, travelling to Museum Hotel, Uçhisar for your wedding.
Everything on this page is delivered by a team that travels from Pune, India; nobody is hired locally in her place. Distance changes the logistics, not the standard: the same kit, products and timings travel with the team.
The client covers the team’s airfare, visa fees and hotel rooms; these are quoted at cost, apart from the artist fee.
Based inPune, India
TravelsTo any destination
Flights & visasFamily covers
Stay & transfersOn the client
A living museum
Hittite, Roman and Ottoman pieces in the bridal suite.
Museum Hotel calls itself a living museum: each of its roughly 30 rooms and suites holds registered artefacts from the owner’s collection, spanning Hittite, Roman, Seljuk and Ottoman periods, catalogued with the Nevşehir Museum. Some suites have private pools.
For the bride, that means a getting-ready room that photographs like no other, and also some care. Makeup stations are set up away from antiques, liquids and sprays are used well clear of them, and we agree with the hotel which surfaces we can use.
The terraces look over Pigeon Valley and White Valley towards Mount Erciyes. On a balloon morning, the sky over the valley fills with colour, which is why so many couples plan a sunrise portrait here.
Sunrise portrait
A Museum Hotel balloon morning.
−3:00
Lamps on, kit out
A daylight lamp and mirror in the suite, set well away from the artefacts.
−2:30
Prep for dry air
Rich hydration; cream blush and highlighter instead of powders.
−1:15
Hair, dupatta, jewellery
Secured for a breeze on the terrace.
−0:20
On the terrace
A shawl until the photographer is ready.
Sunrise
Balloons over the valley
Final touch-ups between frames.
The view
What the terraces look out on.
Pigeon Valley, below the hotel.Photo: Dosseman · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsMount Erciyes on the horizon.Photo: Dan · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia CommonsBalloons on a calm morning.Photo: Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Lil’a and the garden
A celebration dinner and a quieter afternoon.
The hotel’s restaurant, Lil’a, serves refined Turkish cooking using produce from the hotel’s own organic garden, with a loggia and a panoramic terrace. For a couple and their closest family, it makes a beautiful setting for a wedding dinner after a sunrise shoot.
After a pre-dawn start, the bride needs rest. We recommend a long, quiet afternoon by the heated valley-view pool, then a soft refresh before dinner: new lip, a little more definition around the eyes and a fresh hairstyle if planned.
The hotel’s own travel desk arranges horse rides and cultural trips, which can fill a second day for guests while the couple has a portrait session in the valleys.
Museum Hotel notes
Small cautions for a historic hotel.
We will
Set up well away from artefacts
Use sprays and liquids carefully
Bring daylight lamps for cave rooms
Please avoid
Placing outfits or jewellery on display pieces
Booking the shoot on arrival morning
Skipping a rest before dinner
Tejaswini
The artist for a sunrise portrait
Tejaswini has prepared more than a thousand brides since 2012, many before dawn. At Museum Hotel she sets up away from the antiques with her own daylight lamps and uses cream textures for dry air, a look planned with you before you ever reach Uçhisar.