Casa Abracadabra

The place

Casa Abracadabra is a 24-room hotel in the countryside south of Marrakech, at kilometre 13 on the Ourika road, and for a wedding you take the whole of it. The defining thing is the olive grove: more than 150 century-old trees, with a long avenue between them that the hotel dresses for dinners of up to 250 guests. Around it sit a glass pavilion, an iron pergola built for dancing, a greenhouse for small dinners, a heated pool and a spa. Jemaa el-Fna is twenty minutes away, close enough for a medina afternoon with your guests and far enough that the evenings belong to you. If a Marrakech wedding, to you, means a long table under trees rather than a palace ballroom, this belongs near the top of your list.

Background

The Casa is the second house of Inés and Bruno, two Catalan cousins who opened Riad Abracadabra in the medina in June 2009, after two years spent restoring a small former palace with tadelakt, Fez zellige and bejmat floors. They built the Casa between 2021 and 2024 on farmland by the Zarraba canal, and it shows that hoteliers made it, not an events company. Every room has its own name and personality, there is a wine cellar and a library, and a flower atelier, Les Fleurs de Inés, runs floral workshops on site. For a wedding that matters. The team is used to looking after the same guests for several days in a row, which is exactly what a wedding weekend asks of it.

Setting and photographs

Your pictures here will be about trees and light. The olive avenue is the image everyone comes for: one table running down the grove, candles in the grass, the canopy closing overhead. The pergola is a ring of iron and climbing plants with a large lantern hanging at its centre, made for a first dance. The pavilion is 150 square metres of glass among the olives and glows at night. By day you get earth-red walls, tall palms and the pool; after dark the hotel fills the garden with candles and lanterns. Plan your portraits for the hour before sunset, then let the night photographs tell the story of the tables, the faces and the light.

Ceremony and reception

The hotel takes events from 20 to 250 guests, and the spaces scale with your list. A ceremony sits naturally on the lawn of the olive garden, and drinks gather on the entrance esplanade under palms and olives. Dinner goes down the olive avenue, as one long table or as rounds, for up to 250. The greenhouse seats 24 (32 standing), which makes it the room for a welcome dinner or the family meal the night before, and the wine cellar takes 12. After dinner, the pergola has a proper floor for dancing and Bar Babouche has three areas, one with a fireplace. The pavilion, glass-walled and climate-controlled with two bars, is your plan for a cold or wet night; ask how many it seats before you count on it for everyone. Catering is in-house, and the team also books DJs, live music, flowers, lighting and a photo booth.

Who it suits

It suits couples with 60 to 150 guests who want the whole weekend in one place and prefer a house with character to a grand hall. Families do well: there is a kids' club with crafts and ping-pong, and nannies on request, which lets parents stay for the late part of the dinner. It suits anyone who wants a single team to handle the food, the music and the flowers. It suits less well if you picture a Moroccan palace or a riad in the medina, if you want to bring your own caterer, or if most of 200 guests expect to sleep where they dance. With 24 rooms, around 50 people stay on site and the rest need beds nearby and transfers.

Accommodation

The 24 rooms each carry their own name and decoration, from twins to junior suites and suites, plus one called Villa Kashbah. Breakfast is included and served at the table until eleven, which your guests will be grateful for the morning after. Take the whole hotel and your inner circle, parents, wedding party and closest friends, sleeps under one roof, and that is what turns a weekend here into a house party rather than an event. For everyone else, Fellah Hotel stands a few hundred metres along the same road and makes the natural overflow, and the medina is twenty minutes away for guests who would rather stay in town. Book the spa, with two hammams and four treatment rooms, for the morning of the wedding.

Getting there

The address is kilometre 13 on the Ourika road, beside the Zarraba canal. From Jemaa el-Fna it is about twenty minutes by car and the airport is roughly half an hour away, so guests who land on the Friday afternoon can make the welcome drinks. Arrange shuttles for anyone sleeping in town: a taxi is easy to find in the medina at nine in the evening and a different story on a country road at two in the morning. The pool is heated to 30 degrees all year and the pavilion is climate-controlled, which stretches the season, but dinner under the olives is at its best from April to June and in September and October. In winter, plan heaters and blankets; in July and August, start dinner late.

Costs

The hotel publishes no wedding prices, so these figures are my estimates built from its public room rates. Rooms sell for roughly 190 to 290 euros a night with breakfast, depending on the room and the season. Taking all 24 for exclusive use starts around 6,000 euros a night and can reach 10,000 in high season once exclusivity is priced in, and you should plan on two nights. Dinner is cooked in-house; for budgeting, a hotel kitchen with full service usually lands above the 40 to 65 euros a guest at which Marrakech caterers start. For 120 guests over two nights, I would plan on 22,000 to 35,000 euros before drinks, music, flowers and decor. Ask for a written quote that separates rooms, the exclusivity fee, food per head and drinks.

Prices here are grounded estimates from published rates, direct enquiries and what couples report paying. Treat them as a starting point and confirm the exclusive-use and per-head figures in writing for your own dates.

Verdict

Casa Abracadabra is one of the strongest new countryside venues around Marrakech for a wedding that runs across a weekend. The olive avenue gives you the image, the pergola and the pavilion give you a party and a plan B, and a team that runs a hotel every day knows how to look after guests for three days straight. The limits are clear: 24 rooms, in-house catering, no palace grandeur. If your list sits between 60 and 150 people and you want trees, candles and long tables more than marble, put it on your shortlist next to Fellah Hotel and Beldi Country Club, and ask all three for a quote on the same dates.