TikTok Stars Celebrate Multicultural Wedding in Dubai After Instagram Romance

Nora Achmaoui, 27, a Moroccan living in Dubai, found love on Instagram. It all started with the photos of Khalid Alherani, 25, a Palestinian born in Dubai, that she liked in September 2021. He sent her a message a few minutes later. "Hello, how are you?" This is the beginning of a love story. "She would tell me about her whole day and everything she was doing," Khalid confides to the New York Times.

On October 1, 2021, they meet for the first time at the Dubai Safari Park. They had breakfast at Nora’s favorite restaurant, Saddle Cafe. Then, at the safari, they entertained themselves while exchanging "silly jokes." They stayed at the safari until closing time, then had dinner at Bab Al Mansour, Choumicha’s Moroccan restaurant. From that day on, a romantic alchemy was born between the two young people. Nora confides that she called her mother after returning home that evening. "I told her I thought I had found the man of my life." The young Palestinian also called his best friend and told him how easy their conversations had been on the first date.

A month after their meeting, they posted a video of themselves on TikTok. Overnight, the video was viewed 1.5 million times. An unexpected success. The couple makes TikTok their source of income. At first, Alherani was not convinced. "I promised him that if he followed me for a year, we would have a million followers," Nora said. "And in a year, we got 1.2 million fans." Their breakthrough on the Chinese social network allowed them to earn money that would allow them to organize their wedding.

On May 28, 2022, on his birthday, Khalid proposes to Nora during a vacation in Petra, Jordan. "He was just in front of me, on his knees with the ring, without asking anything," the young Moroccan remembers. On February 22, 2023, the couple got married in front of 120 guests at the Abdullah Mohammad Al Shirawi Mosque at the Bab Al Shams Desert Resort. The wedding was imbued with Moroccan and Palestinian cultures. Nora wore dresses designed by Amira Lebsatte, Ezra Couture and Alaa Duba. Khalid, for his part, wore outfits by Zaid Farouki and Emad Tariq Hussein. The day after their wedding, the husband moved into his wife’s apartment in the Barsha Heights neighborhood.