Do not put a drone in your photographer's bag. Morocco does not permit drones to be brought into the country without prior authorisation and they are routinely held at customs on arrival, which is a bad first hour of a wedding week. Aerial footage is arranged locally, with permission, or it is not arranged at all. Fireworks are possible and go through a licensed operator with authorisation, agreed months ahead.
The drone, and the conversation to have in month two
Tell your photographer and videographer before they book flights, not after. Crews who work internationally assume they can carry a drone and declare it, and in Morocco that assumption ends with the equipment in a customs office and a long conversation in a language they do not speak.
Where aerial footage matters to you, it is commissioned here through an operator who already holds the permissions, and it is scheduled like any other supplier rather than grabbed between events. Where it does not matter, say so early and save everyone the argument.
Fireworks
Possible, arranged through a licensed pyrotechnics operator, and requiring authorisation and the venue's agreement in writing. It is not a thing that can be added in month ten, and it is not a thing a venue will let a guest arrange privately.
It also collides with the noise curfew. A ten minute display at one in the morning is a different application from the same display at ten in the evening, and at some venues the second is straightforward and the first is impossible.
What needs what
The pattern is consistent: anything that flies, explodes or is louder than a band needs somebody's permission, and the permission takes longer to obtain than the thing takes to arrange.
| How it is arranged | What goes wrong | |
|---|---|---|
| Drone footage | Locally, through an operator holding current authorisation | Carrying one in. It is held at customs on arrival and the trip starts badly |
| Fireworks | A licensed operator, with authorisation and the venue's written agreement | Asked for too late, or asked for after the curfew hour |
| Cold sparklers and indoor fountains | Through the production supplier, with the venue's sign off | Almost nothing. This is the usual answer when fireworks do not clear |
| Sky lanterns | Generally not permitted | Fire risk, and the venue will decline. Do not plan around them |
| Open fire in the mandap | Agreed with the venue and written into the contract | Agreed verbally in month two and denied in month nine |
| Music past the curfew | A late licence where the venue holds one | Assuming a house rule and a municipal curfew are the same thing |
What we do about it
Every one of these goes into the venue contract or into a supplier's scope before anyone books a flight, and the answers are gathered on the site visit rather than by email, because a venue manager standing in the courtyard gives a truer answer than one at a desk.
Then the photography and film crew get a written brief on what they can and cannot bring, in month two. That one page has saved more wedding mornings than anything else on this list.