Three hundred guests do not fit in one Marrakech property, so a wedding here is normally a block across three or four hotels within a short drive of each other and of the venue. The decision that matters is not which hotels. It is who goes where, and how far the furthest one is from the courtyard everything happens in.
One property or several
If the whole party fits in one place, take it. Everything downstream gets easier: one coach call, one breakfast, one lobby to find people in, and a wedding that feels like a house party rather than a conference.
Above roughly a hundred and fifty guests that stops being possible here, and the question becomes how to split without creating a first class and a second class.
| One property | A block across several | |
|---|---|---|
| Works up to | Roughly 150 guests | Any number, and it is the normal shape above that |
| Transfers | One call, one fleet, everyone together | Staggered by property, and the furthest sets the timing |
| The feel | A house party. Guests run into each other at breakfast | Needs building deliberately, or the wedding fragments |
| Cost | Usually higher per room, and exclusive use may be required | More flexible, and guests can choose their own level |
| The risk | It sells out, and late RSVPs have nowhere to go | The far hotel feels like the overflow hotel |
Who goes where, and saying it out loud
Immediate family and anyone with a role in the ceremony goes closest to the venue. Grandparents go closest of all, regardless of anything else. That is not a hierarchy, it is a mobility decision, and framing it that way in the guest pack removes most of the awkwardness.
Keep families together and keep friend groups together. A cousin group split across two hotels will spend the week arranging to meet instead of being at the wedding.
How a block actually works
Rooms are held at an agreed rate against a release date, usually four to eight weeks out, after which unbooked rooms go back to the hotel. That date is the single most important number in the whole guest process, and it is why the save the date has to carry the booking instructions rather than waiting for the invitation.
Be clear about who pays. Families do it differently, and the one unforgivable version is leaving it ambiguous, because guests then book nothing while they wait to find out. One sentence in the pack settles it: the room is on you, or it is on them, or the first two nights are on you.
The last morning, which everybody gets wrong
The reception finishes late, and the flights home leave in the afternoon, and between those two facts sits a checkout at eleven. Four hundred people with luggage in a lobby, hungover, waiting six hours for a coach, is the last memory your guests take home.
Negotiate late checkout across the block at the contract stage. It costs very little inside a block booking and it is the difference between a calm departure and a long morning. Where a hotel will not, take a small number of day rooms and a shaded terrace and make it a farewell brunch instead.
The things to check before signing
Connecting rooms, and how many, because families with young children need them and every hotel has fewer than it says.
Ground floor or lift access rooms for older guests, and whether the lift actually reaches the room or stops a floor below, which in a converted riad is common.
Breakfast hours against your schedule. A Haldi at nine and a breakfast that opens at eight thirty do not work.
And whether another group is in the same hotel that week, which decides whether the pool at four in the afternoon is your wedding or somebody's conference.