A ‘chai, paani wala’ wedding: Surat couple gets married in just Rs 500

The groom said their family had decided to give up plans for a grand wedding ceremony and served the guests with ‘chai and paani’ (tea and water).

This was a far cry from the idea of a ‘big, fat Indian wedding’. The central government’s demonetisation announcement on November 8 led a couple in Surat to get married for just Rs. 500.

The family decided to give up plans for a grand wedding ceremony and served the guests with ‘chai and paani’ (Twitter/ANI_news)

The groom said their family had decided to give up plans for a grand wedding ceremony and served the guests with ‘chai and paani’ (tea and water).

“We were initially tense after Modiji made the demonetisation announcement as our wedding date was fixed. Later, after considering the situation, we decided to get married by offering just tea and water to the guests,” said Daksha, the bride.

“We decided to give up on a grand wedding and instead had a ‘chai, paani wala’ wedding,” said Bharat, the groom.

After the sudden announcement to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes by Narendra Modi, troubles have increased especially for middle class households and lower income families who do not have much cash deposits in their homes to manage without cash.

Also, thousands of families are also struggling this wedding season without having cash in hand to manage the expenses.

However, the RBI had relaxed one of several conditions for withdrawal of Rs 2.5 lakh from bank accounts by making declaration for payments beyond Rs 10,000 only. Earlier, the customer had to declare all payments he had to make out of the Rs 2.5 lakh withdrawal from the account.

The apex bank said lenders will ask for three documents including a detailed list of persons to whom the cash withdrawn is proposed to be paid together with declaration from such persons that they do not have the bank accounts.

Read | Demonetisation: Banks may allow cash withdrawal for weddings from next week