What is Moroccan wedding food like?

A Moroccan wedding is a feast in the truest sense — I've attended ones that ran past 3am with the food still coming, and the abundance is the entire point. The meal is a statement of honour and blessing (baraka): the more lavish and endless the spread, the more the host family loves their guests. If you're ever invited to one, go hungry, pace yourself, and surrender to the rhythm.

The procession is almost ceremonial. It often opens with pastilla — that glorious sweet-savoury pie of warqa pastry, pigeon or chicken, almonds and cinnamon — set down whole and shared. Then comes the meat: tagines of lamb with prunes and almonds, or chicken with preserved lemon and olives, followed frequently by méchoui, a whole lamb roasted until it falls apart, carried out on a platter to gasps. Each course is shared from a communal dish, eaten with bread and the right hand.

The sweet finale is just as grand: seffa, a mound of steamed vermicelli or couscous dusted thick with cinnamon and icing sugar, studded with almonds and dates — served savoury-sweet, sometimes with a saffron chicken hidden beneath. Then towers of pastries — gazelle horns, briouats, ghriba — fresh fruit, and glass after glass of mint tea poured with flourish. Dates and milk frequently welcome guests at the door before any of it begins.

Beyond the food, the spectacle matters: the bride carried in on the amaria (an ornate throne), traditional music, henna, and tables that never seem to empty. I can sometimes arrange a wedding-style celebration banquet for guests on milestone trips — a curated taste of that overwhelming generosity. It's the most complete expression of Moroccan hospitality there is.