A couple from the United Kingdom has invited 28 guests to their wedding in Morocco in September 2023.
Almaz Burgess, the bride, said she and her husband saved by booking an Airbnb as a wedding venue.
The 31-year-old also said they kept costs down by hosting their reception at a local restaurant.
Even before her engagement, Almaz Burgess knew that she wanted to get married somewhere specific.
Burgess, a 31-year-old advertising accountant, is from New Zealand. However, she met her current husband about six years ago after moving to the UK. They “hit it off right away,” she told Business Insider.
When Burgess returned to New Zealand at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the couple spent over a year in a long-distance relationship.
After Burgess returned to the UK in 2021, the couple married in a civil ceremony in front of friends in London. But the newlyweds always knew they wanted to host another wedding celebration once travel restrictions were lifted so their families could meet.
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“We wanted to celebrate in a neutral location because we felt it would be unfair to say, ‘OK, all my family and friends have traveled to the UK,’ and then his family doesn’t have to travel anywhere,” Burgess said.
Another challenge was cutting costs, which is not a walk in the park when it comes to weddings in an exotic location. According to a study by The Knot, an international destination wedding costs an average of $42,000 (€39,200) – nearly $10,000 (€9,300) more than a standard U.S. wedding.
Wedding locations in Greece and Italy charged 10,000 euros
A year before the wedding, Burgess began researching weddings in Greece and Italy. It didn’t take long for her to realize that neither was right, as most local venues were designed for weddings with 100 to 200 guests. Burgess and her husband, on the other hand, sent out 40 invitations but only ended up with 28 guests.
Burgess also said that the venues’ prices were beyond their budget: “I remember in Italy the venue rental was 10,000 euros for the day.”
So they moved to Morocco, more specifically to Marrakech – another destination that had been in the back of their minds for a long time.
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“In Morocco there is the traditional riad,” she says, meaning a Moroccan house that usually has a garden or courtyard. Many of them are listed on Airbnb, and Burgess contacted the hosts to see if they could accommodate a wedding.
“The owner I messaged through Airbnb was very accommodating and enthusiastic,” she said, adding that the host also offered to help organize the event. This was very helpful since Burgess didn’t have a wedding planner and didn’t speak the local language.
The couple paid around 1,400 euros for the wedding location
The three-night Airbnb accommodation cost £2,000 and could accommodate twelve people. Burgess and her husband’s family, who were also staying at the Airbnb, helped drive the costs down even further.
“We ended up paying about £1,200, which we recorded as venue rental,” she says.
The ceremony, conducted by a friend of the couple, took place in the courtyard of the Airbnb in front of a swimming pool. It was short, beautiful and more reflective of the two of them as a couple than their civil ceremony.
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“We tried to keep it under half an hour,” says Burgess, “so as not to bore anyone.”
After the ceremony, guests had cocktails on the Airbnb’s rooftop terrace, where they were surprised by a Moroccan band that the Airbnb host had hired for the couple. “We didn’t know what to expect,” she said. “They were so fun, kind of a party band that was supposed to get people fired up.”
Later, the wedding party headed to a hotel restaurant for a reception-style dinner. Decorating the room with candles cost £400 (€470) and the food cost £1,500 (€1,750).
“It really felt like a venue that we rented and there was no one else there,” she said.
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“They already had all the tables and chairs and tablecloths and glasses,” she said. Even without a wedding planner, the restaurant was very trusting to work with, even though they had never been there before, Burgess said.
“Some people couldn’t cope with not knowing anything. But for us, our guests’ experience was more important than all the little details,” she says.
The cost was kept low, but it didn’t feel “cheap.”
By giving guests a year’s notice and keeping venue costs low, Burgess said travel costs were reduced for Burgess and her husband, as well as for the guests.
“We didn’t want people to rule it out because they feel like, ‘Oh, it’s too much effort,'” she said. The couple also cut costs by skipping floral decorations as they are “expensive” and wouldn’t last long in the heat, and by not having bridesmaids.
“Being a bridesmaid can be very expensive,” she said. “I thought to myself, ‘I don’t really want to pay for their dresses, and they probably don’t want to pay for a particular dress either’. So who cares?”
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Burgess also did her makeup and hair and bought her dress – which wasn’t actually a wedding dress – online from Australian brand Bec Bridge for less than $200 (190 euros).
Although they chose their wedding with cost in mind, Burgess said it didn’t feel “cheap.”
“I know people go into debt for their wedding, and if they want to do that, that’s totally fine,” she added. “But I think it’s really sad that people feel like they have to do this because they have to meet a certain standard or have that wedding they saw on Pinterest.”
“You can’t have everything,” Burgess said. “But if you’re creative, you can still have a great wedding.”
Read the original article in English here