A guide to marrying in Marrakech
39 papers so far. Everything we have learned running these weddings here, written down properly, and added to as we go.
The ceremonies
The four days
From the card arriving nine months out to the car pulling away on the fifth morning.
Haldi in a Marrakech garden
Turmeric, marigold, and the one morning nobody is being formal.
Mehndi at guest volume
Booking henna for the bride is easy. Booking it for two hundred people is the actual job.
Sangeet: stage, sound and the curfew
The night both families compete, and the night your production budget is decided.
The Baraat: horses, dhol and permission
Thirty minutes, two hundred people walking backwards, one horse.
The Pheras, and the Anand Karaj
Two different ceremonies, two different sets of requirements, both entirely possible here.
Vidaai, and the morning after
The part nobody rehearses, complicated slightly by everyone having the same flight.
Seating eight hundred
Eight hundred people, one kitchen, and three hours to get it right.
Garba, and why it is not the Sangeet
One night everybody watches. The other night everybody dances. Gujarati families hold both, and only one of them is a stage.
The puja that starts the week
The first event of the week, the smallest, and the one that quietly sets everybody's flights.
A Jain wedding, away from home
The ceremony travels without difficulty. It is the kitchen, the clock and the officiant that need arranging first.
The Milni, and where to put it
Two families meet in pairs, and it happens at whatever spot the horse stops at. Choose that spot in month three.
Venues
Venues
A multi day wedding needs grounds that hold several hundred people, run more than one ceremony a day, and let a mandap go up overnight.
The desert and the foothills
Forty minutes out of the city there is a landscape nobody in your family has been photographed in. It comes with a bill, and the bill is logistical.
Travel
Guest logistics
The part the parents ask about first, and the part that decides whether the week feels effortless or exhausting.
Morocco visas for Indian passport holders
No visa on arrival. An e-visa that usually clears in one to three days. And a letter only your organiser can write.
Flights from Mumbai, Delhi, Dubai and London
Three hours forty from London. One stop from Mumbai. Plan the week around it.
Moving three hundred people between events
Four events, three hundred guests, and a plan that runs to the minute.
What to put in the guest pack
The document that stops three hundred people emailing your mother.
Planning
An eighteen month timeline
What has to happen when, and what happens if it does not.
When to marry in Marrakech
Month by month, with the temperatures that actually matter.
How many days, and how many events
Three days is tight. Five is generous. Four is what most families land on.
The legal bit, and where it happens
The Pheras are the wedding. The certificate is admin, and it is almost always easier to do that part at home.
Marrying around Ramadan
A Moroccan constraint with no Indian equivalent, which is why nobody asks about it until the date is already held.
Fireworks, drones and what needs permission
Two things every Indian wedding expects, and two things Morocco has firm views about. Both are solvable and neither is solvable at the airport.
Choosing Marrakech
Marrakech or Rajasthan
Every family we speak to has this argument. Here is the honest version, including when Rajasthan is the better answer.
Marrakech or Dubai
Two very different answers to the same question.
The flight time argument, in hours
The whole case for Marrakech is in these numbers.
Marrakech or Udaipur
Udaipur is the one every family names. Here is the honest comparison, including the case for not leaving India at all.
Suppliers
Photography and film
The first question every family asks after the venue. Four days, six events, and a light that is unforgiving at noon and extraordinary at six.
Mandap, decor, and what is built here
Almost all of it is built here. The exceptions are worth knowing before somebody quotes you six weeks of freight.
Hair, makeup and the lehenga
Twelve people to get ready, one bathroom with good light, and a lehenga that has just spent six hours in a cargo hold.
Pandit, granthi, dhol and the DJ
Some of these people cannot be substituted at short notice. Those are the ones to book first.
Guests
Where three hundred people sleep
One property almost never holds everybody. What matters is how the several you use are chosen, and how far apart they are.
Children, and the grandparents
The two groups who cannot tell you they are struggling, and the two who decide whether the week was a success.
The hours nobody planned
Guests remember the ceremony and they judge the gaps. Four days is a lot of hours, and only about twenty of them are programmed.
More papers are coming. What a wedding here actually costs, catering for four hundred, and the suppliers we use. If you need an answer before then, just ask us.
Ask us (opens the booking page in a new tab)