Wedding bells start ringing again as the Covid pandemic subsides

FNP Venues, a unit of Ferns N Petals, a flower and gifts retailer that operates wedding venues in Delhi-NCR, hosted 1,000 weddings across its 11 luxury venues in 2019. Vikas Gutgutia, Founder and Managing Director, said he is hopeful that business will return. normal till March

He added that this year, wedding companies will compensate all losses for 2020-21 and may even charge 10-20% premium. “People have saved a lot in the last year and a half, so a lot of marriages are either happening or waiting to happen. If we have to implement our regular parameter, we should have double the number of marriages by the end of this financial year as compared to 2019.”

Darshan Shroff, Partner, Momente Weddings, said that there has been a strong return in bookings for weddings for the January-March period. “Most good places are booked for January, February and March, especially in Rajasthan and Goa. We are finally having the same number of weddings as in 2019.”

There has been a surge in inquiries for 2023 as well.

Several states have allowed 250 people to attend weddings. In Delhi, the number has been capped at 200, but authorities have 50% capacity restrictions in some parts of the NCR. In Mumbai too, venues are allowed to operate at 50% capacity. Rajasthan is allowing 200 guests.

While there are no exact numbers on the size of India’s wedding market, WedMeGood.com, an aggregator of all-things-weddings, estimates the pre-Covid market at around $40-50 billion. Certainly, people still prefer small weddings, said Shroff. “Now it has become very acceptable to call fewer people and improve the quality of marriage. People don’t want to invite more than 250 people in most cases and send gifts to their acquaintances instead of wedding invitations.”

Hospitality firms are also taking full advantage of the returns of weddings.

Hotels in many places have increased their rates by at least 10-20% from pre-Covid levels. Since many international locations are still off-limits, the demand for destination weddings is mostly domestic. Many of the current inventory in popular resort destinations is sold out for January and February.

Niramaya Surya Samudra, a member of Reliance & Chateau, a consortium of individually owned and operated luxury hotels, Kovalam expects a 20-25% increase in destination weddings at its property.

In Jodhpur’s House of Rohet, the wedding business has increased from 5% to 30% of the total business this year. Samode Hotels, Jaipur has seen a growth of 40% for its weddings business as compared to a year ago. In FY23, it is expected to match the wedding business of 2019.

Momente’s Shroff said he is working on ‘destination wedding’ projects worth at least Rs 3 crore in Rajasthan and Goa for January-March. Since luxury wedding venues are limited, top 5-star hotels in Rajasthan and Goa are charging 25-30% premium on auspicious dates between January and March. The Westin and its Sohna Road resort in Gurugram, New Delhi are sold out for wedding dates to the end of 2021.

Empire Events founder Vikram Mehta, who helps plan luxury weddings, said the price of hotels he works with has gone up 30% after the second wave. “It’s an uphill climb due to multiple inquiries on the same date. With regard to vendors, more than pricing, it’s a lack of availability on some dates. Overall, weddings are at least 25% more expensive than before ‘Covid,” he said.

In Maldives, Sonva, a luxury resort, said it expects its Indian wedding portfolio to grow by 30% by the end of March.

Wedding platform WedMeGood said that the wedding industry experienced a steep decline in April-May 2020, following a fluctuating graph of Covid-19. Some restrictions began to be eased between September 20 and February 21, but this too brought only temporary relief, with a second wave in March. Following this, new restrictions were imposed where the guest list was limited to only 50-100 people in popular wedding venues such as Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Goa.

Weddings may be small, but the expenses have not come down.

Aashna Saran, founder of Aish Studios in Mumbai, agreed that post-pandemic weddings have become costlier as the cost of purchasing perishable items like flowers has increased significantly. Experiential themes and personalized decorations have become popular and expensive, requiring a separate budget for decoration and detailing by most households.

Saran said couples are now more inclined to explore more experiential and fun options — they are more inclined to throw sundowner parties, for example.

Rahul Puri, Multi-Property General Manager, The Westin Gurgaon, New Delhi and The Westin Sohna Resort & Spa believes that as the country returns to normalcy, the guest list at weddings will also gradually increase. Will keep increasing.

“Intimate weddings will continue to be a personal choice, but as an industry, we will see a gravitation toward large celebrations and a surge of lavish supportive pre-wedding events,” he said.