For many expats, the UAE is the place to tie the knot

With the UAE quickly emerging as a top 'destination wedding' spot for expats, Alice Haine investigates the business of getting married in the Emirates.

Stepping off a traditional abra onto a beach set against the Burj Al Arab, newlyweds Susie and Dave Marshall make their way towards their wedding party to the sounds of a Scottish bagpipe.

Their guests turn and cheer as the couple walk hand in hand across the sand towards them, beaming smiles plastered on their faces.

With the stunning scenery, bright sunshine and luxury venue, it's easy to understand why the British couple chose Dubai for their wedding location over their original choice of the Scottish city of Stirling.

Susie, an airline purser, and Dave, a facilities manager, both 32, are part of a growing number of resident expatriates who choose the UAE over their home countries as the place to tie the knot.

The growth spurt in this sector of the wedding market is partly the result of the sudden abundance of luxury hotels offering picture-postcard settings that are hard to match elsewhere. But experts believe it's also because expatriate culture is changing; with residents now more committed to the place where they live and work, they want to show it off to their loved ones back home in the most impressive way they can - at their wedding.

"In many cases, expatriate couples have lived here a long time and feel this is their home, so they want their friends and family to come and see how they live their life," says Elena Karpechenko, the Ritz-Carlton Dubai's meeting and special events executive who organises some 30 weddings a year. "Our market is predominantly UK and Irish expats who want the beach wedding, and demand grows by 20 to 25 per cent every year."

Fifteen years ago few expats would have considered the UAE an appropriate wedding destination, mainly because the country simply did not have the breathtaking beach venues it has today. But with the emergence of picturesque locations in Dubai such as the Jumeirah Beach Hotel in 1997 and the Royal Mirage in 2000, as well as Abu Dhabi's Emirates Palace in 2005, the interest in UAE-based nuptials took off.

"It's almost like having a destination wedding and it's more fun than going home," says the wedding planner Leena Alsulaiman, half of the Carousel Girls, who organise four to five weddings a year in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. "In many parts of Europe you can't guarantee the weather, so for a summer wedding you are limited to just a few months a year, whereas here it's wedding season all year round except the summer."

Interestingly, the expatriate wedding craze accelerated in 2009 at the height of the credit crunch, when dozens of new hotels offering dreamy locations were completed, proving that weddings are not only lucrative for the Emirates, but also recession-proof.

"We've seen an increased demand ever since the boom period of 2009," says Daphne Cota, the exhibition manager at IIR Middle East, organisers of the Bride Show, an event now in its 10th year in Abu Dhabi and its 14th in Dubai and that has quadrupled in size since it first launched. "Although in the past people would consider going back home to get married, it's no longer considered that way. And when people work here, it's so much easier to plan their wedding here as well."

That was the case for the Dubai-based Marshalls, who ditched their idea to marry in Dave's home nation of Scotland when they realised they could have a dream wedding here instead.

"Initially we were worried about guests having to come over here, the expense and the legalities, but then we spoke to some friends and realised it wasn't going to be that difficult and started looking at venues," says Dave, a former servicemen in the army who first met Susie while he was holidaying in Dubai during a break from duty in Iraq in 2004.

The couple enjoyed a holiday romance and despite losing touch, and reconnected when Dave returned to Dubai in 2006 en route to Afghanistan. This time their relationship led to a marriage proposal in February 2008 during a skiing holiday. But with Dave still in the army and living apart from Susie, their wedding plans were put on hold until he changed careers and moved to Dubai 18 months ago.

Once the preparation got under way, the couple were determined to deliver the "wow" factor for the 50 guests flying in from the UK.

"We wanted them to experience Dubai and try and make a holiday of it as well, so it needed to be special," says Susie, who moved to the UAE in 2004. "There was no point being stuck in a room in a normal hotel on Sheikh Zayed Road."

The couple settled on the Al Qasr hotel, part of the Madinat complex in the shadow of the iconic Burj Al Arab, where their guests would be transported by abra from the hotel to the beach for a drinks reception and then later to the waterside venue for a buffet and party.

"It just blew our guests away and that's what we wanted," says Dave. "We're starting to see a lot of pictures from our wedding with the Burj Al Arab in the background posted on Facebook."

Similarly, for 34-year-old Australian Kelly Cyndrowski and her Lebanese husband, Tony El Bittar, 42, choosing the UAE as their wedding location was a good way to get their families together and allow them to have a holiday at the same time.

"We are from different countries and it was not fair to make some family members travel and not others," says Cyndrowski, who owns a hair salon in Dubai. "One of the biggest factors was my work; owning my own business means I work really long hours, so time off is a luxury and I didn't want to turn into a 'bridezilla' planning a wedding in a country I don't live in."

The couple first met eight years ago when they worked together, but their friendship blossomed into romance culminating in market strategist Tony's proposal last June at Dubai's Armani Hotel. They wed in December, with their ceremony at St Mary's Catholic Church followed by a drinks reception and candlelit meal on the lawns of the Ritz Carlton Dubai.

"I ask myself, 'Who'd have thought that one day I'd get married in Dubai?'" says Cyndrowski. "But I'm really glad I did. I have had some wonderful opportunities here and I met the most amazing man here, so I guess I was sealing my fate by having my wedding here."

And Cyndrowski says the best part of her big day was that so many family members - some of whom hadn't seen each other for 15 years - were able to fly in.

"We had 78 people at the wedding and 40 per cent of those were family who flew in from Lebanon, Kuwait, Bulgaria and Australia," she says.

While Cyndrowski and the Marshalls enjoyed a destination wedding more typical of western couples - with a beachside location and a guest list of less than 100 – the Carousel wedding planner Zainab Alsalih says expatriate Arab nuptials are often on a much larger scale. Europeans invite mostly family and friends, whereas Arabs extend the guest list to acquaintances.

''I know you and I've met you so you're invited to my wedding," is the typical hospitable thinking of Arabs, says Alsalih, who has organised such events with 600 guests and is considering taking on a project with more than 1,000. "There's a lot of obligation, so you might not know the people being invited because in Arabic culture the parents do the hosting and invite everyone they know. And because they are inviting so many people, and have often lived here for a long time, it makes sense to have the wedding in the UAE as this is where their friends and family are."

For British Iraqi Reem Shakarchi, tying the knot in Dubai was the most natural thing to do because her family lives here. Reem, a London-based research analyst, moved to Dubai when she was 12 and spent her teen years in the emirate before attending university in the UK. But after meeting the London-based Marwan Shakarchi, 26, a marketing manager, in 2008 and accepting his proposal three weeks later, she decided to get married in the place she calls home.

"My husband has no connection with Dubai, but it's where all my friends and family are and I knew that if we had the wedding in London it would be one-sided with more of his family there than mine, and Arabs in London are always willing to travel to the UAE," says Reem.

In keeping with Arabic tradition, Reem's in-laws organised the big day in November 2009, even selecting the ballroom of the creek-side Park Hyatt in Dubai for the venue.

"I was a bit upset that I wasn't hands-on planning the wedding, but what can you do, that's the way it's done," says Reem. "Luckily my mum was in Dubai so she could see all the materials and colours that my planner was working on, so she kept me reassured."

The theme of the 400-guest event - "quite small for an Arab wedding", according to Reem - was old Hollywood glamour. The bride walked down a raised catwalk in a white lace dress on the arm of her father and later cut into a beautiful multi-tiered cake created by a New York-based cake designer who flew in especially for the event.

"The wedding was not cheap at all, but it would have been astronomical in London," Reem says, "though I have no idea how much we spent on the wedding as traditionally the groom's family take care of that."

The wedding planner Alsalih agrees that hosting a wedding in the UAE can often be cheaper than popular locations in Europe and elsewhere in the Middle East, as hotels here tend not to demand a fee for the venue.

"They charge per person, so couples get more for their money," she says, adding that European expats spend an average Dh80,000 to Dh100,000 on their big day, whereas Arabs spend anywhere from Dh250,000 to Dh3 million.

But though the recent credit crunch has done little to curb the number of wedding bookings, the Ritz Carlton's Karpechenko says it has had an effect on budgets.

"When I first started organising weddings a few years ago, the budgets were bigger, whereas now people are more selective about how they spend," says Karpchenko, who says the average spend at her hotel is Dh45,000 to Dh60,000, with wedding sizes limited to 150 guests. "They might go for cheaper flowers to ensure they still have the best food, so what we are seeing now is competition from the hotels to offer something that is original and interesting that stays within a couple's budget."

For the Marshalls, despite going over their original wedding budget of Dh100,000, they were delighted they could afford a five-star wedding.

"You can't beat a setting and location like that and to have that same experience in the UK would have been extortionate," says Dave. "We would have had to factor in the cost of flying backwards and forwards to ensure everything was going to plan, whereas here it was all on our doorstep, so much easier to organise."

And bride Reem says although choosing Dubai to host her wedding was not easy logistically, it worked for her on a more personal level.

"Dubai is my home - it's where I grew up, so it was only natural I wanted to get married there," she says. "And if you had the choice I think anyone would choose the UAE because of the luxury and the standard and the weather and it's far more beautiful."