Moroccan weddings are a big deal. While spending a semester abroad in Morocco this past fall, I often wondered whether I would get the chance to partake in the traditional celebration so unique and significant to the country. A lesson in our Arabic textbook centered around weddings in the Arabic-speaking world, and while we learned about certain traditions in countries like Somalia and Egypt, our professor focused for an entire week on the details of Moroccan weddings. My chance to attend a Moroccan wedding appeared at the very end of the semester: three days before finals started, my host dad told me that we would be going to Marrakech that weekend for the wedding of two of my host mom’s cousins, Ihssane and Amine. I had met both of these cousins earlier in the semester during Eid al-Adha, a religious holiday that we spent in Marrakech with the extended family. I was excited not only to return to Marrakech and show off my much-improved language skills, but also to attend such an unfamiliar tradition surrounded by familiar people.

Multiple events lead up to the actual wedding day, starting with the khatuba, or the engagement ceremony. The two families come together about a year before the wedding to agree on the marriage and for the groom’s presentation of gifts to the bride and her family. The other two ceremonies take place during the week of the wedding: the bride first goes to the hamam, the Moroccan baths, with her close female friends and relatives. The next day, the bride receives elaborate henna designs on her hands and feet. Some grooms receive henna as well: a small, circular design will sometimes be drawn in the center of their palms. Once all of these ceremonies are complete, the bride and groom are ready for the wedding.

The zifaf is a long and elaborate process. Details of the ceremony vary depending on region and social class, but there are a few major tenets of a zifaf, primarily having to do with the bride. After certain Koranic verses are read, religious songs sung, and the guests gathered together, the bride enters. At many weddings, she enters on an amariya, an ornate litter, and is carried around the room multiple times while thelitter carriers perform certain dances. She is then brought to a platform where she sits next to the groom for pictures. Over the course of the night, the bride will change dresses up to seven times. Depending on when the ceremony starts, the stamina of the guests, and how quickly the bride can change, a zifaf could end anytime between 4:00 and 7:00 am.

We arrived at the wedding venue, and I realized that the wedding was actually being held in the house of the bride’s parents. This was remarkable, in that the house was actually large enough to host everyone and beautiful enough for the high standards of Moroccan weddings.

All of the guests found seats around the edge of the crowded room, and once everything had settled down, the couple walked in. While Amine wore a rather ill-fitting polyester suit with a skinny tie, Ihssane was radiant in an emerald green caftan covered in gold embroidery, topped off with a golden tiara. The two sat on a couch placed on top of a platform. After Ihssane’s dress had been arranged by her two assistants, a photo session lasted for what felt like an hour. Folders containing the legal marriage documents were then brought in, and the couple proceeded to sign them to the accompaniment of camera flashes. At the end of the legal ceremony, both exited, signaling a new phase of the wedding.

At this point, all of the men went upstairs to a different living room, and for the rest of the evening, Amine came in and out of the room, occasionally sitting next to his bride in her various dresses and participating in a few ceremonies. Ihssane, on the other hand, was either on the platform having her dress arranged and posing for pictures with friends and relatives, or upstairs getting changed in a process that usually took around half an hour. In total, she wore seven sumptuous, as well as symbolic, dresses: green, blue, yellow, pink, the amariya dress, a Western-style white wedding dress, and finally a simple white djellaba, which symbolized leaving her parents’ house and travelling to her new husband’s home. By the time she appeared in the djellaba, we could all see how exhausted she was, despite her joy at the success of her wedding. In the days that followed, I couldn’t help but contemplate the different roles expected of Amine and Ihssane during their wedding.

At first glance, Amine’s license to wander throughout the ceremony—from the main floor with his bride and all of the women to the upper floors where the men were seated—represented the total freedom and agency of men in Moroccan society to do as they like. After all, there are customs and traditions for Moroccan men during the zifaf, in which Amine was able to choose not to partake. Ihssane, however, was both literally and figuratively placed on a pedestal, the object of the guests’ and the camera’s gazes. After further reflection though, I came to view their roles in a different light; it seemed to me that Amine’s occasional presence and participation provides an example of only partially engaging with culture and tradition, while Ihssane carried the burden of fully interacting with and upholding the customs of her heritage. The experience affirmed for me that weddings in Morocco are indeed a big deal: not only are they a celebration of joy and family that reflects the family’s culture and traditions, but they also make clear who is actually responsible for upholding those traditions.