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A Chit Chat with Arabia Weddings: Carnivalesque

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A Chit Chat with Arabia Weddings: Carnivalesque

Carnivalesque Events is an event consultancy  in Dubai, specializing in creating events.

We had a chance to ask Mohammad Rajab, the Managing Director, and Noora, the Creative Director, a few questions and here is what they had to say:

  • Tell us more about you and your career.

It started almost 3 years ago, Noora and I come from different backgrounds that when brought together beautiful things started exploding, we met in 2003 and started getting to know each other very well until we both got married in November 2011 and ending up planning our own wedding.

From there our career paths met in between until we came up with starting our own business. Way before that, I started my career in marketing working with Microsoft moving on to Bloomingdale’s Dubai handling marketing and events.

Knowing what she wanted, Noora on the other hand majored in Graphic design at the American University of Dubai, and every day passed her love for design only grew. Her work was selected and exhibited in “Tasmeem Doha 05″, that was held in Virginia Common Wealth University, Qatar.

She was nominated for the PANDAS 2007 (package and Design Awards); she was the 2nd Runner-up of Dubai Light Railway Design. She started working at an agency as a Graphic designer, but slowly found her interest was moving towards the Event planning department and took it from there. After sometime and during our normal “ So How Was Your Day” chats we discovered a lot in common talking about the different events and activities we do at our daily jobs and decided why not do it ourselves, it took approximately 3 month of proper planning until we had our very first own baby “Carnivalesque”.

"The most important part here is having consistency within the whole setup,

starting from your invitations to the stationary used and finally the colors"

  • What made you choose Dubai or mainly the Gulf region to start your wedding planning and party business?

Honestly our main drive was the lack of professionals in the market back then, especially in Abu Dhabi where we couldn’t find someone to actually theme our wedding properly nor advise us on how efficiently we can distribute our budget spend to have the perfect wedding, we have met them all, some of which their fees alone was 50% of our budget and others that didn’t even know what a theme is.

Seeing how fast the market here grew by which between Abu Dhabi and Dubai you have a new wedding planning company opening up every month, this gave us the exact challenge and drive to success we needed with an urge to show the difference we have in terms of design, service and the overall experience.

  • Weddings have different traditions from one Arab country to the other, but when it comes to wedding planning, do you find any difference in planning a wedding in the Gulf region or in any other Arab country?

Yes definitely, the main differences between Arab countries are mainly 4 things:

  1. The use of lighting shades and colors, where in some countries always the more pink or purple you set the ambient theme the better, other countries love the use of the ballroom lighting completely and think that if you set an ambient color its too dark!  And others that depend mainly of a mix of both.
  2. Photography and Videography, very much in many Arab countries where getting a crane is not feasible you still see videographers in classy weddings walking around with mini ladders to get shots from the top, some find this completely acceptable.
  3. Zaffe, the most popular and most cultural difference across all Arab countries this gives every wedding its own flavor, and its always better when done in someone’s home country. Zaffe has very different traditions in most Arabic countries.
  4. Decorations and Venues, you will find a complete difference here in terms of flexibility, what’s allowed and what’s not, especially indoors where you will find way more elements that you can do in other countries than here.

  • What are the latest trends and wedding themes (colors, décor, …) this season?

-This season honestly saw a lot of trends coming in, starting with the 1920’s Glam and soon after the Great Gatsby movie came out, everything turned Gatsby and it was 4-6 months of Great Gatsby weddings and Corporate events all over the place.

-Then the use of mason jars and milk bottles along with those vintage glass wear, the use of them came very handy in many decorational elements.

-Pastels and nude colors where dominant across the season.

  • How can a couple have a beautiful wedding on a low budget?

It all depends on how the couple allocate their budget and set their goals straight focusing on what matters most, avoiding huge bride and groom setups (kosha) can save a lot and make you focus on smaller details that can really wow your guests, also selecting the entertainment properly can also help in leaving a beautiful memory to talk about.

The most important part here is having consistency within the whole setup starting from your invitations to the stationary used and finally the colors. Every wedding has to have its own personality and character, it’s like meeting someone and you would always remember something special about him or her.

"This season honestly saw a lot of trends coming in,

starting with the 1920’s Glam and soon after the Great Gatsby movie came out"

  • What is the most outrageous thing a couple has asked you to do for their wedding?

     Depending on what do you consider outrageous we have had lots of things:

  1. A 14 meters dance floor for a 250 ppl only wedding.
  2. An African Zaffe all the way from Tanzania for a grooms entrance.
  3. A bridal bouquet with only 8 roses and a ribbon (turned out gorgeous though).
  4. Those are stuff we have done but we have been asked for way more outrageous stuff like coming in on hot air balloon, or having the kids pool area as the dance floor, but we have used our judgments and convicting techniques to plan otherwise.

 If you are getting married in Dubai, you will find this Weddings in Dubai section very useful, check it out!

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