Taylor Said I Do. What Does It Cost in the UAE?

**Tim Elliott** (0:01)
This is the Morning Drive. Wedding Economics next. The world was watching in New York this 4th of July at the weekend. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce turned Madison Square Garden into, I suppose, the ultimate wedding venue. They captured headlines around the world with their event, I suppose is the way to put it, their wedding day. Most of us aren't renting out an arena though, and it has to be said, it's kind of impossible to ignore the impact of these megawatt celebrations that we have, the expectations that we have watching celebrities. So lots of questions from this, not least of which is cost. We'll come to that. But are weddings changing?
Are couples spending less? Are they spending more? Do celebrity weddings influence what people want for their own big day? There's a lot to talk about. What does it cost to say, and I do. Khalood Al-Amrani is founder of the HY Soiree Events. She does weddings properly. Good to meet you.

**Kholod El Amrani** (1:05)
Good morning. Same here.

**Tim Elliott** (1:06)
It's good to have you here. I'm not great at the whole wedding ceremony thing. I'm going to ask you, fire loads of questions at you. But I'm interested in this because obviously it's a big story. Taylor Swift getting married, it dominates headlines. But celebrity weddings, do they still shape what couples aspire to? Or is it about budget? How important is it, an event like this?

**Kholod El Amrani** (1:32)
So definitely celebrity weddings are affecting some of the decisions of our couples. They're sometimes coming to us and asking just to have the same wedding as one of the celebrities, or they're inspired by the decoration they have done, the entrance, entertainment, or any element of their weddings. But they're still concerned, they're still, their main concern is the budgets. So they're trying to reproduce this in a smart way.
They're trying to have the same elements, but a bit less expensive, and I mean, spend less on it.

**Tim Elliott** (2:12)
Okay, so it has a very real impact.

**Kholod El Amrani** (2:15)
Definitely, of course.

**Tim Elliott** (2:16)
Okay, are we seeing, is the gap widening between the kind of Instagram aspirational budgets and realistic spending? Because what you see on Instagram, it looks a lot more than the things we can afford.

**Kholod El Amrani** (2:31)
Social media is impacting, or I would say sometimes helping the couple to make their decision on what they want.
Sometimes they're just coming to us, I don't know what I want, but I want the same wedding as this, as what I've seen on Instagram or Pinterest or any of the pages and websites and social media channel. But still, their main concern is to have it in a proper way, in a nice way, but cheaper than what they have seen.

**Tim Elliott** (3:04)
Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's difficult though, isn't it? Because it sounds like it's a little bit like you go into a hairdressing salon with a picture, and you say, make me look like Jennifer Lopez. And the hairdresser is kind of like, I can't do that. I'm not a miracle worker. And it's very hard to do that with a wedding, isn't it? You can't just copy, or can you just copy something, do it cheaply?

**Kholod El Amrani** (3:27)
We cannot copy. We can take the inspiration. Let's say it's a garden theme. Then we find out that the client, okay, show us a garden theme wedding. So we can do something out of it, but our way.
Not exactly the same. It will still be a garden theme, but a bit different, reflecting her personality as well and her story with the chrome. This is very important.

**Tim Elliott** (3:51)
Okay, Khaloud. So in your experience here in Dubai, what, nine?

**Kholod El Amrani** (3:56)
Nine years now.

**Tim Elliott** (3:57)
How long have you been doing your events?

**Kholod El Amrani** (4:00)
I've started when I was 17

**Tim Elliott** (4:02)
Okay, so that's...

**Kholod El Amrani** (4:04)
Few years back.

**Tim Elliott** (4:05)
Couple of years of experience. Let's just leave it there.

**Kholod El Amrani** (4:07)
Yeah.

**Tim Elliott** (4:09)
But what is it that... What elements of the big weddings? Take Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, for example. We don't know much about that yet. I understand that. Sure. I can help.
What are the elements that really inspire couples here in the UAE from the big weddings?

**Kholod El Amrani** (4:27)
Here, the big weddings have changed a lot. Since I came till now, before we were saying...
We could see that couples loves flowers everywhere, bushy arrangements. Now, it's different. Now, it's all about candlelight weddings. It's all about meaningful elements that will be used in the ceiling at the backdrop of the bride. They want something very simple, personalized and minimalistic.