A Mara Wedding Quite Like No Other

And what a celebration it was…

The bride and groom hailed from London and decided, site unseen, that at the base of the lovely Out of Africa kopje was where they wanted to declare their vows with fifty friends and family in attendance. They travelled from all four corners to honour the marriage of their beloved friends.

This is the story of how it all came together.

When a couple are getting married for the second time they know exactly what they want and what a joy it was planning it all from afar: London, Johannesburg and the Mara all blended into one seamless operational hub with nearly 2000 emails, over 50 phone calls and a couple of face to face meetings in Jozi pulled it all together.

The challenges were tackled one at a time: the Rabbi understandably asked for a fully kosher wedding feast. No problem. Nearly 20kgs of kosher chicken were flown to Kenya in Nicky’s suitcases, along with all the ingredients needed for a beautiful kosher feast. Drappier champagne and kosher wines were ordered, and the bride's favourite chocolates were sourced in SA and flown up in staff suitcases over the three months preceding the wedding. The groom, a homesick ex-South African, ordered heaps of biltong and droeëwors, which accompanied the chocolates in every available corner of free luggage space.

‘Please, can we have a thousand white roses?’ asked the bride. Absolutely no problem, other than it took supplier #3 to find the perfect white rose. ‘And we will get married under a chuppah,’ she added. A quick visit to Pinterest and the drawings were on their way to the lodge. And just to make everything looked perfect, we carpeted the floor of the chuppah with white rose petals.

Maasai warriors to accompany the groom to the chuppah. Tick. Maasai maidens to accompany the bride. Tick. Parev wedding cake. Tick. The right shade of pink for the bride’s bouquet. Tick. The seating plan. Tick. The beautiful and never-ending gifts for the couple’s friends were perfectly wrapped and delivered to the tents each evening. Tick. The daily programmes. Tick. The safari vehicle seating plans. Tick. Tick. Tick.

The Rabbi nearly stole the show with his cantor brother-in-law performing joyous wedding songs. Everything was going to plan, and then, of course, the heavens opened. In Maasailand, no celebration is truly blessed unless it rains. Well, it poured. Plans B, C, and D kicked into gear, and the wedding feast moved from outside to inside in a matter of minutes. The bride’s speech made us all cry, and the groom looked mightily pleased with his beautiful catch.

I am not sure who had the most fun, but if it was the couple and their guests, the staff came a close second. We would do it all again in a heartbeat.

My warmest thanks to the couple who graciously allowed me to tell their story. We guard our guests’ privacy fiercely, but in their words, ‘We are proud ambassadors of Angama and would be delighted for you to share our story’.