Above about a hundred guests the Turkish coast narrows to two serious options. They are not interchangeable.
The one-sentence version
Antalya and Belek solves the logistics of a large wedding. Bodrum solves the look. Pick the problem you actually have.
Accommodation: the decisive difference
Belek has several resorts with three or four hundred rooms, a beach lawn, a ballroom and enough function space to run three events in a weekend. Your entire guest list sleeps in the building the wedding happens in.
Bodrum does not have that. The peninsula's best properties are boutique in scale: twelve rooms, twenty rooms, forty rooms. Two hundred guests means three hotels and a transport loop, as Aisha and Omar's wedding did.
Three hotels is not a disaster. It is a concierge desk, a loop bus every twenty minutes, and a logistics line in the budget that Belek does not have. If your priority is a calm weekend, this is the whole argument.
The look
Bodrum wins, and it is not particularly close.
White walls, dark shutters, bougainvillea, a jetty into flat water at seven in the evening, a marina full of gulets. Guests who have been to Mykonos arrive with a reference point and Bodrum meets it.
Belek is a resort coast, honestly and unapologetically. The beach is long and sandy, the hotels are large and comfortable, and the aesthetic is competent rather than distinctive. What it lacks in character it returns in ease.
Flights
Antalya has the denser network by a wide margin, with more than forty European cities in season, more than a dozen German ones. Milas-Bodrum has good summer coverage and thins noticeably in the shoulder months.
For a guest list of two hundred, that difference is real money and several fewer connections. The airport comparison.
Weather and wind
Antalya is hotter and calmer. Bodrum is cooler and windier. The meltemi blows through summer afternoons and it is why the Aegean is comfortable in July.
Practically: an afternoon ceremony in Belek in August is uncomfortable but stable. An afternoon ceremony on an exposed Bodrum jetty is comfortable and will move your veil. Both are solved by an evening ceremony.
Curfews
Bodrum wins. The beach clubs run to two in the morning, which is the latest licence on either coast. Belek resorts stop outdoor music at one and move inside, because they have other guests. Why the rules differ.
Privacy
Bodrum, clearly. A private bay with no public access on the day is available here and it is not in Belek, where you are on a hotel beach with other guests two hundred metres away.
For Gulf families this is frequently the deciding factor, and it is why our UAE couples mostly end up on the peninsula.
Cost structure
Bodrum is more expensive per head at comparable quality, and the gap widens with the guest list because of the multi-hotel logistics.
Belek's all-inclusive resort model also changes the shape of the quote: much of what would be separate lines elsewhere is inside the venue contract. That makes comparison harder and the total lower. How to read a quote.
Where each one breaks
Belek breaks if you want privacy, a distinctive setting, or a party past one o'clock.
Bodrum breaks above about two hundred guests, where the peninsula's accommodation stops being able to absorb the number without the weekend becoming a transport operation.
The recommendation
Under a hundred and fifty guests, and if the look matters: Bodrum.
Over a hundred and fifty, or if a large share of your list is bringing children, or if there is a henna night and a wedding to fit into one weekend: Belek.
Two hundred guests and you insist on Bodrum: possible, and we will tell you exactly what it takes before you commit.
The wider comparison
All seven regions compared and how to block rooms across several hotels.
