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Get married now, or wait for eternity!
People rush to get married as a maximum of 50 guests are allowed in a wedding hall. Couples want to get married in July, in anticipation of the third wave
As the dreaded second wave of Covid-19 subsides, giving the country some respite, it also seems to have given a kick-start to the shaadi season, right in the middle of sultry. The news of a maximum of 50 guests being allowed in a wedding hall has made the to-be weds across the country rejoice, and rush to book the dates and venues for weddings. In fact, the couples who had their weddings planned for a later date this year are trying to get married in July itself, in anticipation of a third wave, lest they have to wait forever!
Celebrity wedding designer Swati Pandya informs that she’s suddenly flooded with requests for an early date for the wedding. “Our clients are going ahead with 50 guests wedding, thereby respecting the government’s guidelines for Covid-19, as they do absolutely realise that this is the ‘best in hand’ situation, but don’t want to delay any further. The times to come are uncertain so they feel it’s better to host the weddings as early as possible, and in July itself as compared to the time when the cap had dipped to 10 or 25 guests, or choose a better weather at a later date,” shares Pandya.
Mumbai-based wedding planner Chinmai Jain, says the desire to hold ceremonies on auspicious dates is also something that is driving people to finalise a date in July itself. “It’s a rush-rush affair now,” says Jain, adding, “There were a lot of auspicious dates in the last three months, but because of the lockdown nothing was possible. Now people are fearing another lockdown in Mumbai in the month of September. They are scared that they might end up waiting another year and, thus want to get married in July, even if it means holding a ceremony in a smaller capacity.”
Ishaan Kapoor, owner of a Delhi-based wedding catering company, who was to get married on July 31, is planning to prepone the wedding. “I’m planning to have it earlier in the month. The third wave can come anytime looking at the way people are behaving in Delhi. We will have 40 guests at my wedding, and we have requested everyone including our house staff to get their RT-PCR tests done two days before the functions commence. The hotel we’ve booked hasn’t asked for these reports but we want to be sure we are ready with them just in case they do,” says Kapoor.
The sudden increase in number of people wanting to get married soonest possible has also made the time quite a challenging one for the wedding planners. “The cost of flowers has also gone up by three times. We used to have 20-25 people in our team earlier, but now there is hardly any labour with us. We are hiring from outside right now to fulfil the demand, and they most people have increased the cost of their services by three times. There are rules and regulations as well that they have to be vaccinated, which makes it tougher to source the right people for the job,” says Sumathy Bachchan, a Delhi-based wedding planner, and Reema Singh, another wedding planner, adds that while people aren’t cutting down on the number of functions, they are, for sure, cutting down on some frills: “So like if they had planned to have singers for all their functions, they would just have for one. Even in a baraat, usually there are 11-50 people in the band with the dhol and lights and stuff, but now there very few and they are not using a baggi or even a band in some cases. Usually people used to spend a close to ₹2.5 lakh on the baraat, but this has reduced to ₹12,000 to ₹15,000.”
Author tweets @anjuri
