Pioneering excellence in India's booming wedding industry
ICWF sets the standard for excellence and collaboration in India's multi-billion dollar and rapidly growing wedding Industry
India’s wedding industry is like no other. According to one estimate the annual spending on weddings–from matchmakers to caterers to film and construction crews–is over Rs. 3 Lakh Crores. That would put the industry, the fourth-largest “behind energy, banking and insurance but ahead of cars, steel and technology”.
To commemorate the business of weddings, the International Convention For Weddings Fraternity (ICWF) convened industry stalwarts, visionaries and pioneers in a one-of-a-kind event at Gurgaon. ICWF aims at creating opportunities for entrepreneurs around the world to benefit from each other to nurture the wedding community in India. In fact, the outfit has also recently announced a fellowship to enable industry executives who wish to upskill themselves. It provides financial assistance to aspiring young minds across a host of wedding-related subjects.
And such is the popularity of the industry that earlier this year the Events and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) of India joined hands with Deloitte, a consulting firm to create a draft of the country’s first-ever Wedding Tourism Policy. The policy was submitted to the relevant officials within the government. The Honourable Prime Minister, too, has made a statement to recognise wedding tourism.
Over the years while the industry grew, there was still a void—a lack of a well-established, formal haven where industry luminaries could gather beneath a shared umbrella, exchanging ideas and insights. "I used to attend myriad conferences on diverse subjects, but the concept of a wedding convention remained elusive. That's when the epiphany struck—let's cultivate a community," said Pritesh Sharma, Co-founder, ICWF. The first edition of ICWF was held in 2013 and a decade later it is still going strong.
ICWF was also conceptualised on the pillars of fun and camaraderie. "The journey, to begin with, is actually more a journey of friends”, said Samit Garg, Co-founder, ICWF to illustrate this point. “ICWF in the very beginning gave us a reason to just meet to be together and to do some fun stuff but you know as we moved along we realised there is so much more purpose that we can fuel into this vehicle.”
