The Big-Fat Indian wedding, Bride, Groom and their extensive entourage drives Indian wedding industry

By Anchal Kumari
New Delhi [India], December 13 : In India, weddings are a big deal. It is a source of pride for families. They are not just about the bride and the groom, but the entire family becomes part of this extravaganza meant to celebrate the uniting of two people.
Marriages in India are not just made in heaven but immaculately put together right down to the tiniest detail. A solemn pledge to have and to hold is now nothing short of a big event, put together by planners and executed by top hospitality professionals. A wedding in India is now an elaborate occasion, spanning onto several days with themes and rituals that are meant to add to the celebration. During the years of the Covid pandemic the celebration had been muted but the big-fat Indian wedding is back just bigger now.

As we see weddings evolving with time, couples today are breaking away from the traditional wedding templates, and experimenting with new ideas -- they are opting for customized wedding attire, unique venues, and handcrafted decor.
The wedding season sees a unique craze for destination and theme-based weddings that have become a new trend in the market.
Hiren Kakdiya, a wedding planner from Surat who has been in this business for the past many years says that earlier there used to be fewer events and that the final wedding day was the only time people used to gather in numbers.
"Earlier there used to be normal weddings, but now events like Sangeet Sandhya are organized. These functions happen for five days. We can also see now destination weddings have started happening" Hiren said.
"The craze for this kind of wedding has started to grow day by day. Those who have weddings, they have started planning six months before. People are planning venues and many other things prior to a year of their weddings, so according to me, this is going to grow," said the wedding planner.

From celebrating like their favourite celebrity couple to choosing exotic destinations to say the magic words, Indian are willing to put a huge dent in their pockets just to get the big day right. Brides and grooms want a high degree of personalisation. A curated wedding experience could easily set the couple and their families back by several lakhs.
Over time, the market has also witnessed an exciting shift in customer demand and preferences. Customers nowadays demand wedding attire that resembles the fusion of tradition and modernization for parties.
Meanwhile, lighter embroideries and pastel colors remain the favorite over heavily worked embroideries as the bridal fashion is no longer restricted to bridal wear worn by bride and groom.
The shopkeepers on the other hand offer a wide range of collections providing customers with a proper setup platform to try and rethink their choices, as for every wedding, there are nearly a hundred potential target consumers.

Be it Lehenga Choli, Salwar Kameez, Saree, designer blouses, and Kurta and pajamas with embellishing embroideries, the shopkeepers these days very well understand their customer choices.
Speaking of current market trends, Shubham Kumar who owns Indu Fashion in Chandni Chowk, Delhi, said, "The bridesmaids generally demand champagne color which is also called the beach color. The bridal Lehengas come under Zardozi work (embroidery). Zardozi embroidery work is one among expensive designs."
He also said that customers ask for something different and more designer, and since they have their factory for this they manufacture dresses keeping in mind their preferences.
The Indian Wedding Industry is thriving and flourishing at this moment with the expected registration of around thirty-five lakh weddings, and a business of around 4.25 lakh crore, as per a survey conducted by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT).

The wedding Industry in India is looked upon as a 4.5 trillion-dollar industry, however, the estimate of marriages varies as it comes under a highly unorganized sector.
Furthermore, with the growing digital transformation, customers are preferring digital invitation cards over traditional ones.
Arpita Mukherjee, a professor and a research professional from the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations speaks about how the wedding industry in India is growing to lead the unorganized sector of India. In an Interview with ANI, she said, "Small and medium businesses have grown around this sector. Many small wedding planners, gifting companies, and many other designers have grown to a very big extent through the wedding industry."
Adding to that the professor also said that around 50 per cent of gold purchased in India is for weddings and that India is the largest gold purchaser in the world. "Indians do not spend on jewelry during the wedding season, if you talk to the jewelers they will say there is purchase all year around, " Arpita said.
However, Mukherjee raised a concern about how the counterfeit market easily eats into the profit margins of big brands. "For Indian brands, the biggest problem with it is the counterfeit market. The counterfeit market in India is so good that it takes away the profit of the brands. While you will be thinking that they have worn a branded product, they may not be the real brand," she said.

As disposable incomes in India rise and flights to exotic destinations get more affordable the big trend has been a destination wedding. From Thailand to South Africa no destination is out of bound for the Indian with money in his pocket. In fact, the growing trend in destination wedding saw Prime Minister Narendra Mod make an appeal to families to host weddings in India and kick-start a 'Wed-in-India' trend.
The style of weddings is changing due to the rise in disposable income and market trends in the country. These trends suggest that it is no longer just about the bride or groom or the families, but the extended entourage, which plays a key role in making the reel and real weddings look similar.
And subsequently this 'wedding affair' is a key driver for the shining Indian economy.