Band, Baaja, Buffering

You thought a pandemic would keep the big, fat Indian wedding from happening? Think again

- Mayukh Majumdar

21st December, 2012 was the date that the world was supposed to end, according to the Mayans. There was even a movie on it. We were either going to collide with a mythical planet called Nibiru or be sucked into a supermassive black hole that was located at the center of the galaxy.

Clearly, nothing happened, and we went back to our lives. But doomsday is upon us now. No no, not because of the coronavirus that has killed lakhs of people worldwide and demolished an already staggering global economy. The doomsday is upon us, folks because for, perhaps, the first time since a husband and wife partook in the saat pheras, the recession-proof Indian wedding industry has taken a hit. And it’s a big one.

According to Vikram Mehta, the founder of Mpire Events, a luxury wedding planning company, Revenue is down from 100 to nil, and the scale for future weddings have been scaled down to 1 percent or 2 percent of the original budgets.” This means that a wedding that would usually cost two crore rupees now has a budget of two lakhs.

While Srishti Kapur of Floral Art hasn't been as badly affected as Mehta, she states that there has been a 99 per cent reduction in business, not to mention the monthly outflow of financial resources towards artisans on the payroll.

But while wedding planners and event managers have been left in the lurch, COVID-19 is not stopping the Indian wedding from taking place. Sure, the bride can't flaunt her Manish Malhotra lehenga amidst the columns of a Jaipur palace, but her relatives, who've logged in on Zoom from all around the world, are getting a pretty good look at it.