Colours all year! Young couples combine Holi and weddings, two fun occasions

Young couples are including Holi, the fun festival of colours, in their wedding celebrations. The result is very, very vibrant — be in a haldi ceremony or at a pre-wedding couple shoot.

What’s the element common to a big community festival like Holi and big fat Indian weddings? It’s the hours and hours of merriment with family and friends — and the fun includes lip-smacking dishes and peppy music. The newest trend that has hit the wedding industry is combining these two enjoyable occasions. Sounds like double the fun!

Guests dancing at a Holi party thrown by the blogger, Masoom Minawala, to kick-start the wedding festivities.

Recently, when Masoom Minawala, a popular Mumbai-based fashion blogger, got married, she kick-started her wedding festivities with a colourful Holi party, instead of the customary cocktail night. She says, “I wanted to throw a unique party where guests would let their hair down and have a good time without making an effort to look glamorous. So, I thought of mixing a wedding function with an exciting festival like Holi — that turned out to be an excellent idea. It reminded us of our childhood memories and emotions attached to it. I tried the colours a month in advance to make sure it didn’t have any side effects.”

Shweta Acharya, the bride, at her Haldi-Holdi celebrations, walking with a colour stick in hand.

Shweta adds, “Apart from just the organic colours, we incorporated water balloons and flower petals to showcase an ambience of the real festival.” The Delhi-based wedding photographer, Prasheila Lookhar, who shot this Holi-themed haldi ceremony, feels that making Holi a part of the wedding functions is an excellent way to include the younger people in the festivities; otherwise, they might not be interested in participating in the age-old traditional ceremonies.

Couples are choosing to play Holi for their pre-wedding shoot to add a dash of drama.

A lot of young couples are also opting for smoke bombs and colour sticks as props in their pre-wedding shoots. Shruti Khanna, a Gurgaon-based wedding photographer, says, “They’re altogether choosing to play Holi, especially for pictures, to add a dash of drama and make pictures look young and fun.”

Jayant Chhabra, a wedding photographer who partners Khanna, says, “Everybody likes happy and vibrant photographs, and colours play an important role as they scream fun, which eventually leads to joyful and lively photos.” Anupa Shah, a Mumbai-based wedding photographer, believes that Holi colours make one get into a cheerful mood, “especially if the shoot is scheduled in the months of spring or summer, it’s a good alternative to the usual OTT shoots, for which you have to dress up”.

However, there is the occasional letdown. Abhimanyu Sharma, photography partner to Lookhar, did a Holi-themed pre-wedding shoot last year. He says, “Most shoots happen in a secluded place and sometimes they turn out to be a failure, too, as we need to be careful about timings, and we need to carry spare props.”