The Pay-As-You-Go Moroccan Wedding





The costs of a Muslim wedding fall to the groom and his family, not to the bride and her family. In Morocco, wedding planning includes food, musicians, waiters...sounds familiar, right?  Once the prices have been negotiated and the money has been paid, it's time to enjoy the event?  Wrong.  All the money spent beforehand seems to have nothing to do with the amount the family is expected to spend while the ceremony is going on.

 

Here is an example: wedding singers accompany the groom, his family, and his gifts to the bride through the streets to the tent where the bride and guests await.  Each of the singers, perhaps 4, 6, or 8 of them, expect 20, 50 or 100 dirham bills will be places into their shirt collars several times along the route.

 

The Moroccan wedding singers are in the foreground.  One of the musicians is seated behind and one of the wedding ladies is the green dress

 

Pay each of the musicans liberally throughout the evening.  And all of the waiters as they bring and remove each course.

 





Don't forget the guys who may herald the approach of the wedding couple, and who will carry the bride and groom on their shoulders while doing a little dance step of their own.  Money in the collars right now, please.  After all, they are holding your child in the air.

 

 

They carry the groom on their shoulders throughout the tent while turning and waving their capes in time to the music

 

 

Pay the wedding ladies, or neggafates, who dress the bride through all of her dress changes and make sure every fold and drape and line on both the bride and the groom is perfect for picture-taking.

 

 

The wedding lady arranges the brides dress just so





Satisfied, she moves to the rear so the bride can be held aloft.

 

Then there's the photographer, the videographer...am I leaving anybody out?

 

You may as well be good-natured about it all.  You can't be stingy.  The denominations are color-coded so everyone can see at a glance how much you're shelling out.

 

Besides, the guests are free to stick money in collars, and they do.  They also compliment each other by giving money the same way to other guests who cut a fine figure on the dance floor. 

 

Relax.  Enjoy.  Dance.  Eat.  Get into as many of the pictures being taken as you can.  Just bring several thousand dhirham with you.  In small bills.