Real Wedding · 8 August 2026
Esther & Fred, in the Maasai Mara
No venue. No power lines. No road for the last stretch. Just open savannah — and everything else we carried in from Nairobi.
The Brief: A Wedding Where There Is Nothing
Esther and Fred wanted to marry with the Mara behind them — not a lawn, not a ballroom, not a hotel garden. Open plain, uninterrupted horizon, nothing man-made in the photographs except what we built.
That is a beautiful idea and a hard one. A venue in Karen gives you power, water, level ground, a kitchen and a place to shelter if the weather turns. A site in the Mara gives you a view. Everything else is your problem to solve, roughly 270 kilometres and five to six hours of road from our stores in Nairobi.
So we treated it as a build, not a booking. Every chair, every metre of red carpet, every stem of gypsophila, the pergola timbers, the draping, the generator and the PA — all of it loaded, driven out, and assembled on bare grass the day before.
What a Mara Setup Actually Takes
The four things that decide whether a destination wedding works or falls apart.
Everything Travels
Furniture, florals, linen, staging and sound go out by truck. There is no hire shop nearby and no second trip — if it is not on the lorry, it does not exist on the day.
You Bring the Power
No mains, no backup socket. We run the PA, the mics and the lighting off our own generator, with fuel budgeted for the full day and a spare unit on site.
Open Ground, Open Sky
Nothing breaks the wind on a plain. Pergolas get weighted and guyed, backdrops braced, and loose décor either anchored or left behind. Shade is structural, not decorative.
A Day Early, Always
We set up the day before and sleep on site. A puncture or a late truck on the morning of the wedding has no recovery window out here.
The Setup
Photographed on site in the Maasai Mara, 8 August 2026.
The Sweetheart Table
Gold and glass, with an E & F monogram backdrop framing the plain.
The Welcome Board
Printed, mounted and braced against the wind the evening before.
Guest Dining
Blush linen, gold pedestals, four linked pergolas for shade.
Gold Seating
Oval-back chairs and glass-top tables, carried in and levelled on grass.
Table Detail
Beaded chargers and a fresh rose runner on every table.
The Full Site
Ceremony arch on the left, dining under the pergolas, and nothing else for miles.What We Supplied
One team, one truck manifest, one point of contact. No coordinating four separate vendors across a five-hour drive.
- Floral moon arch
- Draped pergolas & shade
- Red carpet aisle
- Ceremony seating
- Gold furniture & glassware
- Fresh florals & linen
- PA system & mics
- Generator & backup
Thinking About a Destination Wedding?
Mara, Naivasha, Amboseli, Tsavo, the Coast — the further out you go, the more the planning matters and the less room there is to improvise.
Destination builds are quoted individually. Transport, crew accommodation, fuel and park or conservancy fees all move the number, so we price them per site rather than off a standard package.
Get a Destination Quote