While Indians love their band baaja baarat, with the pandemic, celebrations have had to be scaled down. But, at heart, the Indian wedding remains big, moving towards personalisation, attention to detail and creating a luxury experience for guests
Aditya Motwane and team took over the Leela Palace Hotel in Udaipur for the wedding of Sonali Fabiani and Jaynit Raheja
Image: Anand Rathi
In early August, a chartered flight took off from Mumbai, flew down to and hovered over Goa and then made its way back. A chartered flight usually has a capacity of 180 passengers, but on board were about 50 people who had taken to the skies to celebrate an engagement. There were no pictures uploaded, no making it a big deal, just two people quietly making the memories of a lifetime with their closest friends and family, in as much a way they could in the middle of a pandemic.
Under the Covid cloud, there are no grand baraats, massive sets, huge entertainment acts or guest lists running into thousands, but over sangeet, mehendi, engagement and reception, the big fat Indian wedding remains big, if not in size then in sentiment. And the focus is on detailed décor, personalised gifts, fine dining as well as longer dos spread over three-four days, with a complete buyout of luxurious properties.
Chennai-based Prethee M, who was supposed to get married in April 2020, was reconciled to a large 1,000-guest wedding and all that it entailed—a big hotel or resort, larger-than-life themes at events, a mandap, baraat, the works. Then the pandemic hit and she did a French registered wedding in August. Meanwhile, her husband and she took charge, steering the parents towards the idea of a more intimate traditional wedding that they started planning for, working with themes that were personal to them—from impressionist artists that they both loved to a reception based on their proposal song ‘La Vie en Rose’.
The courtyard of a small boutique hotel was filled with Van Gogh-inspired Sunflowers, the entrance had Starry Night installations, and flower arrangements and a green bridge recreated Monet’s garden, ideated and designed by wedding design and planning firm The A-Cube Project. “We had nothing to go on, no Pinterest boards or anything, so we started from scratch and replicated the places where the artists lived,” says Prethee, adding that the personalisation wouldn’t have worked had it been a bigger venue. “If you had to replicate that on a bigger scale, it would just get lost. Not many people who go to a wedding notice the smaller details, they just see the grand stages and the number of chandeliers.”
(This story appears in the 08 October, 2021 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)