Fawakay Villas

The place

Fawakay Villas is a small estate of five sand-coloured houses and three straw-roofed eco suites set in three and a half acres of rose gardens, about fifteen minutes east of the medina off the Ouarzazate road. It sleeps up to 30 people, runs like a boutique hotel, and can be taken over entirely for a wedding: the owners say they host gatherings from two people to more than a hundred. Jasmine and bougainvillea climb the walls, olive trees shade the paths, and a few animals wander the gardens. For a relaxed wedding of 40 to 100 guests, with a long weekend for your closest friends, it is one of the best-value exclusive venues around Marrakech.

Background

Fawakay was created by Francis and Dawn Boys-Stones, who still run it and answer the phone themselves. They built it in an unobtrusive modern style rather than as a pastiche palace, with private gardens and plunge pools for the larger villas, a library with open fires for winter evenings, a spa and hammam, and a yoga shala in the garden. The result feels like a friend's country house more than a hotel, and the place collected an editor's choice award from the travel guide i-escape in 2026. For a wedding, having the owners on site means decisions get made quickly and nothing is lost between departments.

Setting and photographs

Your photographs will be about gardens, warm walls and low light. The 15-metre pool, ringed with olive trees and tall terracotta jars, gives you the classic daytime frame with the villas behind. After dark, strings of lights over the pool terrace turn it into a stage. The rooftop terrace, furnished with low sofas and lanterns, looks over the countryside, and a white-curtained pavilion in the garden makes a natural spot for a ceremony or a dessert table. Bring your photographer for the hour before sunset, when the sand-coloured houses glow and the roses are at their best.

Ceremony and reception

With the whole estate to yourselves, you can hold the ceremony in the garden pavilion or on the lawn by the pool, serve drinks on the rooftop terrace, and lay dinner around the pool or under the trees for up to about a hundred guests. The team cooks for every diet, and its sample Moroccan dinner menu is priced at 250 dirhams a head; for a hundred, ask whether they cook everything themselves or bring in a caterer. They also organise the extras that make a Marrakech party: Gnaoua musicians, fire eaters, acrobats and henna artists, plus transport for guests staying elsewhere. Ask about the music cut-off, since you are in a rural village.

Who it suits

It suits couples with 40 to 100 guests who want a relaxed, family-style wedding weekend rather than a formal hotel event, and especially couples with children in the party: there is a children's pool, high chairs and cots are free, and the gardens are safe to roam. It suits couples who like to know what they will pay, since the rates are published. It suits less well if you want luxury-hotel service, a grand ballroom, or all your guests sleeping on site: 30 beds will hold the wedding party and close family, and the rest will need hotels in town.

Accommodation

The estate sleeps up to 30. Villa Taos, the most secluded, has four bedrooms, a plunge pool and its own garden; Villa Sannor has three bedrooms with a master suite upstairs; Villa Lak Lak is a two-storey villa for up to six with a family suite, a plunge pool and a Berber tent at the end of its garden. The Garden Suite takes a family of four, and the three circular eco suites take two each, close to the bar. Breakfast is included and served wherever you like, on your terrace or by the pool. The spa and hammam can look after the bridal party on the morning of the wedding.

Getting there

The estate lies in the village of Mhamdia, east of the city: from the Bab Atlas roundabout on the Fez road, take the Ouarzazate road, then turn off through the village. The medina is about fifteen minutes away and the airport around half an hour, and the owners arrange airport transfers. Because the last stretch runs through a village, book minibuses for guests staying in town rather than counting on taxis. Spring and autumn are the best seasons for a garden wedding; in winter the library fires and heated rooms help, and in July and August keep the dinner late.

Costs

Fawakay publishes its prices, which is rare. The whole estate costs 1,800 pounds a night with breakfast, about 2,100 euros, with a three-night minimum for exclusive use, so the venue and beds for 30 come to roughly 6,300 euros for a long weekend. Villas booked one by one run from 150 pounds for an eco suite to 500 pounds for Villa Taos in high season. Food is the other big line: at 250 dirhams a head for the sample dinner, a hundred guests cost around 2,300 euros before drinks, and a larger wedding menu will cost more. Add a tourist tax of 30 dirhams per adult per night, then music, flowers and decor.

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

Fawakay Villas is the venue for couples who want a warm, unpretentious wedding weekend in the countryside, with the owners on hand and the prices on the table. The gardens are lovely, the estate is big enough for a hundred at dinner and small enough to feel like your own house, and the cost is a fraction of the Palmeraie palaces. Its limits are a simple, family style of service and 30 beds. If that suits you, put it on your shortlist next to Domaine Bahi and Villa MontBel, and compare what each includes for the same three nights.