On a Friday evening in April, in a courtyard bathed in the warm, orange glow of a Moroccan sunset, I watched as Idris Elba and Sabrina Dhowre were married in front of 200 of their good friends and family. As Sabrina adjusted her Vera Wang gown and Idris paced the riad expectantly in a three-piece Ozwald Boateng suit, every inch the movie star, it occurred to me what a beautiful, symbolic moment this was. As Sabrina had put it to me earlier, “My family is from east Africa and Idris’s is from west Africa, so we thought it would be fun to meet somewhere in between.”

“Somewhere in between” has proved to be the strength of this special relationship. The groom’s family hails from Sierra Leone and Ghana (via Hackney), the bride’s from Somalia (via Canada), so they decided to place Africa at the heart of their raucous and romantic three-day wedding festival in Marrakesh.

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I loved seeing how they had woven their heritage into every aspect of the festivities, sometimes literally. At the party on the eve of the wedding, the groom – as is customary for men from Sierra Leone, where Idris’s father was born – wore the patterned fabric of his family’s tribe, while Sabrina had the same fabric worked into a dress designed by her friend Roland Mouret. Over the course of the celebrations, there were performances from Afrobeats star Davido and a show-stopping turn by Somali women doing a traditional buraanbur dance to a song written specially for the couple. It was a wonderfully modern spin on an African wedding.

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As such, it suited this superstar couple down to the ground. The much in-demand pair – who met one fateful night in 2017, in a Vancouver jazz bar, while Idris was filming The Mountain Between Us in the city – can often seem to us friends to be professional nomads, constantly travelling the world. But they have found a home in each other. “We’ve been literally inseparable since we met,” Idris told me on his wedding morning, as we drove in his car between venues. “Inseparable,” he repeated, beaming.

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In many ways, theirs is an old-fashioned love story. For Sabrina, a vivacious, kind-hearted former beauty queen, it was “love at first sight”. They were sitting with their respective friends, enjoying a Sunday night out, when their “eyes locked”, they got to talking, and boom. “You know, I’m 47 this year,” Idris told me, “been married and lived a full life before I even met Sabrina. It wasn’t something that I wanted to do, get married again. But…” he trailed off, eyes lighting up. What a pleasure, I thought, to see a grown-up soften in this way. And they don’t come much more grown-up than Idris. Instinctively, he knew he could introduce her to his children – Isan, 17, and Winston, five – and their families “blended”. “Sabrina has deepened friendships with people I’ve known longer than [her], nurturing the best side of me to make me connect to my friends more.” She has become, he explains, his “anchor”.

The first months of their relationship were a whirlwind, with Idris flying around the globe for work, including for his directorial debut, Yardie, and jetting in and out of Ibiza for his famed DJ residency. He decided to propose in February 2018. “I wanted to do it on Valentine’s Day, but because of my schedule, I wasn’t going to see Sab.” So he settled on a screening of Yardie for cast and crew a few days earlier, where he got down on one knee, and she said yes. It was, he says, “perfect”, though “when I saw it on CNN [which picked up the footage] I was like, ‘Oh-oh,’” he adds, smiling.

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The newly betrothed quickly became one of the most-invited couples on earth, memorably attending another wedding of note. “That was an incredible experience,” says Idris of his friends the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s nuptials in May of last year. “I was curating the music for that night, so it was a bit of pressure, but it was great. A vibe.” Meanwhile, he says his and Sabrina’s love deepens every day. Looking around at the intoxicating romance of Marrakesh in springtime, Idris said he felt their wedding day was “magical”. Just like the new Mr and Mrs Elba.

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And the bride wore…

No one will forget the three days they spent in balmy Marrakesh for Idris Elba and Sabrina Dhowre’s wedding. At a Colours of the Souk-themed welcome celebration at the Amanjena hotel, guests were transported to a replica of the city’s Jemaa el-Fnaa square: as the sun went down, fire-eaters performed alongside acrobats and belly dancers.

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Come sunset the following evening, guests took their seats in the courtyard of the Ksar Char-Bagh hotel to watch the couple say their vows. Elba waited for his bride in front of an altar of flowers as, hand-in-hand with her mother, she walked down the aisle dressed in a breathtaking custom-made Vera Wang gown.

“Sabrina and I spoke on the phone first, in January, and we immediately had a special connection,” Wang tells Vogue. “At first, I wanted to go with something that was dramatic and big,” said Sabrina, “but then Vera showed me the beauty of a simpler design.”

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The bride and designer worked together and exchanged ideas. “Sabrina is very confident with her body, and being so tall, she could carry a beautiful train,” explained Wang of the A-line crêpe dress with delicate Chantilly lace train. “And when she asked me to have Idris’s arm tattoo embroidered at the bottom of the train – ‘This train carries no wrong-doers’ – then I knew I was dealing with a very special woman, totally in love. It was her personal tribute to Idris.” Diamond earrings and a bracelet by David Morris, a pair of bespoke shoes by Christian Louboutin – personally delivered to the bridal suite by the designer – and a bouquet of white roses were the finishing touches.

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After the ceremony, guests enjoyed drinks to the sound of Habib Koité, a musician from Mali, and his band. The wedding breakfast followed, in a conservatory filled with pink and red roses (the couple wanted a Garden of Eden feel, explained their wedding planner Riccardo Lanza). Saffron risotto with lobster and then salt marsh lamb chops came courtesy of Italian chef Federico Salza, while the wedding cakes – one Madagascan vanilla and cherry, another Moroccan olive oil, buttercream and lemon – had been prepared by Szilvia, a Hungarian pastry chef married to Umar Elba, Idris’s cousin.

For dinner, Sabrina wore another bespoke Vera Wang dress, this time a figure-hugging number embroidered with shimmering crystals. As soon as the cake was cut, on came New Edition’s “Candy Girl”, and the dancefloor swung into action. A surprise performance from Afrobeats star Davido delighted the crowd, and the night ended with the groom behind the decks, joined by Sabrina and presenter Maya Jama singing along.

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Read more: The Upcoming Celebrity Nuptials Competing For Wedding Of The Year

The next day, the wedding party enjoyed an informal lunch by the Mandarin Oriental’s pool. That night, fireworks lit up the sky, concluding the celebrations, but no one was ready to leave – least of all the newlyweds, who were still revelling in the company of friends and family. “We want the guests to leave remembering the importance of love,” said Sabrina. “Behind all the glitz and the flowers, that’s what matters.” Gianluca Longo

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