Top 10 Planners in Africa
These ten event planners have spent years building businesses in Cape Town's wine country, Nairobi's safari lodges, Johannesburg's private estates and Beirut's high-end ballrooms. What they have in common is not so much a shared geography, but an instinct: no couple gets a template and no wedding is recycled from the last one. Some lead teams of dozens, while others work almost entirely alone. Every one of them treats a wedding day as something closer to theatre than logistics. Here are ten planners creating celebrations worth talking about.
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Kraak
Hannes van Kraak discovered wedding planning almost by accident while pursuing a career combining hospitality, architecture and design rather than focusing on just one of these areas. Seventeen years in, he still defines the job by one specific moment: "the minute I reveal the venue to the couple for the first time," he says, describing it as his favourite part of the entire process.
His studio, Kraak, works almost exclusively in remote or reimagined spaces rather than conventional venues. He sums up the studio's philosophy as "the perfection of imperfect, simplicity in mass." One of his most memorable projects took him to Mozambique, where he led guests through the sea to a beach adorned with fires and a sand dance floor for a sunrise ceremony, what he terms "the essence of barefoot luxury." His dream project is a plot of land in Namibia surrounded by dunes and covered with stars.
Mon Amour Events
Jessica Hubert's career in wedding planning began the moment she joined a company dedicated to creating unforgettable wedding experiences, long before she went on to found Mon Amour Events. Twelve years later, she still describes its appeal in the same way: "what excites me most is that no two weddings are ever the same." She says that every celebration is a reflection of a couple's story, style, heritage and dreams.
She rules out anything formulaic, believing that "a wedding should never feel like a copy-and-paste celebration, but rather a beautifully curated reflection of two people." One wedding that she stayed with involved a bride whose father performed calligraphy for the guests, a small, deeply personal touch that turned into one of the day's most memorable moments. Her dream project would take place somewhere with real history, somewhere "untouched, unexpected, and filled with character."
Anne Mann Celebrates
Anne Mann founded South Africa's first dedicated wedding coordination business in 1999, at a time when the profession itself was still in its infancy in the country. More than 27 years later, now running Anne Mann Celebrates, she still considers it a privilege: "I still feel incredibly privileged to be part of one of the most meaningful days in people's lives."
Her philosophy is based on a few key principles, such as "people before trends" and "bespoke over formulaic", and is rooted in the belief that "true luxury is thoughtful, seamless and deeply personal, not simply extravagant." She and her team deliberately limit their calendar to no more than twelve weddings a year, and her favourite blank canvas remains an open field: "starting from nothing allows us to create a completely bespoke celebration."
Wedding Concepts
Christina Holt left Germany in 2004 to build a new life in South Africa. She arrived with a specific ambition: to introduce a boutique, internationally inspired standard of luxury wedding planning to a market where such a service barely existed. "My vision has never changed, only grown stronger," she says, reflecting on her twenty-plus years running Wedding Concepts.
For Holt, the job is inseparable from her identity. "It's the art of combining logistics, production, international expertise, and genuine human connection to create extraordinary experiences," she says. "I love every part of it, it is simply who I am." One of her most memorable projects was a traditional African wedding for a thousand guests. She describes this celebration as logistically complex, but also as an unforgettable event that brought different traditions together. Her advice to couples budgeting for their big day is straightforward: "an honest, achievable budget is far more valuable than an underestimated one."
Precious Celebrations
Precious Thamaga built one of Africa's leading luxury wedding planning studios from a corporate career that she never expected to leave behind. "Wedding planning found me long before I officially found it," she says, recalling the moment in 2011 when she took the leap and founded Precious Celebrations. At the time, very few Black African wedding planners were operating in South Africa's luxury market.
More than fifteen years later, her philosophy hasn't changed much: "every celebration should be as unique as the people at the heart of it." A destination wedding in Mauritius, her first outside of Southern Africa, was a defining moment for the business, proving that her process could work just as well internationally. Her dream project would be a multi-day celebration on Lake Como, which she describes as offering "timeless architecture, breathtaking scenery, and understated elegance."
Baz Events
Walid Baz founded his Beirut-based studio, Baz Events, in 2009 and has since grown it into an award-winning, multinational event design company with an impressive client list, including large-scale weddings. He has become such a prominent figure in the industry that he regularly appears in magazines and on television, discussing his craft.
He is renowned for large-format visual productions, creating projects built around massive LED screen installations and personalised animations rather than traditional décor alone. The studio's reputation rests on transforming a single night into a fully-engineered production down to the smallest detail.
AURA by Fatema Bhaiji
Fatema Bhaiji has spent more than fourteen years building Aura, a Nairobi-based studio renowned for its bespoke wedding services in Kenya and beyond. "I did not set out with a grand master plan," she admits. "I simply loved creating memorable moments and found immense satisfaction in seeing an idea come to life."
Her philosophy centres on treating luxury as a feeling rather than a price tag. "Luxury is not about excess; it's about thoughtful details, meaningful experiences and creating moments that feel authentic." A project that shaped her business was a large-scale celebration in Tanzania that was later featured in Vogue India. However, she is quick to note that scale was never really the point: "what makes a wedding unforgettable goes beyond the scale of the production."
Trend Events by Elias Sarkis
Elias Sarkis has spent eighteen years planning weddings and events, having started out as a student of Visual Communication Arts and Art Direction. This background still shapes his approach to every celebration. His very first project set the tone for everything that followed. "The first wedding I ever planned was for my best friend," he says, recalling the moment he discovered the connection between his design training and his new career.
The philosophy of his company, Trend Events, is built around originality rather than convention: "we take pride in creating unique weddings, often in unconventional and extraordinary locations." One of his most memorable projects took place inside Lebanon's Cedars of God Natural Reserve, where he transformed an untouched forest into a wedding venue. If he could choose any location in the world, he wouldn't hesitate: the pyramids of Egypt.
Paul Nasr
Since 2007, Paul Nasr has run his Beirut-based studio, building a reputation for weddings that lean hard into spectacle, with 3D mapping visuals, dramatic lighting rigs and production values closer to a stage show than a reception. His team has brought their expertise to venues as diverse as the Bosporus Bridge and the shores of Lake Como.
"We thrive on designing breathtaking, bespoke events that exceed expectations and bring people together," says the studio, a mission that extends to corporate and cultural events as well as weddings. The common thread across every project is the same: turning a couple's special day into a fully staged production rather than a traditional celebration.
Fadi Fattouh
Fadi Fattouh has spent more than eighteen years building a Beirut-based event planning studio that organises weddings, engagements and anniversaries across Lebanon and internationally. "Our company specialises in designing and planning events, including weddings, engagements, anniversaries and various social gatherings," the studio explains. "While our main base is in Lebanon, we extend our services globally, orchestrating weddings and events around the world."
The process begins with getting to know the couple well before any design work starts. "We approach each wedding as a combined effort with our client. We start by getting to know you so we can fully understand your style, passions, likes and dislikes." The studio then builds every element of the celebration around that couple's specific lifestyle and personality rather than using a fixed template.
The settings could not be more different: from a Cape vineyard to a Nairobi conservancy to a Beirut ballroom rigged with LED walls. Yet every studio on this list built its reputation in the same way: by listening before designing anything. Budgets, team sizes and signature styles vary wildly across the group, but the instinct to treat a wedding as a story rather than an event does not. You can get to know wedding planners from across Africa on Wezoree and reach out directly to start the conversation
