No brakes on big, fat Punjabi weddings

Delhi’s Punjabis are getting ready for the usual ‘leg, peg and pomp’ routine as the shaadi season begins, reports Veenu Sandhu.

Simplicity and Punjabi weddings don’t go together. Cocking a snook at the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee’s (DSGMC) diktat, in July, banning ostentatious ceremonies, Delhi’s Punjabis are getting ready for the usual ‘leg, peg and pomp’ routine as the shaadi season begins.

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“A Punjabi wedding without tandoori chicken and Patiala pegs is unheard of,” says Dilpreet Randhawa, 28, whose over-the-top wedding takes place at a Chattarpur farm this November. DSGMC had ordered Delhi’s one million-plus Sikhs to boycott elaborate weddings serving meat and alcohol. Wedding ceremonies should be held in a gurudwara, with few guests, it had said.

Two months after the diktat was issued, wedding planners are being flooded with orders for big fat Punjabi weddings. “For a guest list of 500, the cost of décor alone touches Rs 4 lakh,” says wedding planner Swati Pandya Sood of Bollywood Secrets. “For one wedding, we have fusion décor with imported flowers, fountains, fish bowls with coloured water etc,” she says.

“Just the entry of the bride and groom, with groups performing bhangra in front of them, costs up to Rs one lakh,” says Rachna Narang of Wedding Rose. Add to this, the rent for the farm, catering, drinks, décor, music and the cost of each ceremony touches Rs 10 lakh. “This does not include the ring ceremony, mehndi night, sangeet, cocktails and the reception,” says Gurjeet Grewal, whose daughter marries later this year.