Trimming the fat out of Big Fat Indian wedding

Jasmine Singh

From fashion to weddings, Bollywood is the only place India looks up to. And it can be single-handedly ‘blamed’ for selling the charms of a Big Fat Wedding to every Indian household. 

Exotic flowers imported from Europe, A-list Bollywood actors dancing to ‘Mehndi laga ke rakhna’, multi-cuisine buffet spread over the vast expanse of a resort, bride in her crores’ plus lehenga and jewellery — the opulence and lavishness of Indian weddings has only grown with time, sometimes leaving a middle-class person under debt to fulfil his aspirations.

But this could all be a thing of the past soon with a Congress MP Ranjeet Ranjan introducing a Bill in Lok Sabha to trim down the Big Fat Indian Wedding. The Bill is a move to check extravagant and wasteful expenditure on marriages and to enforce their simpler solemnisation. According to the Bill, if a family spends above Rs 5 lakh on a wedding, it has to contribute 10 per cent of the amount on marriage of girls from poor families. The Bill will also put a limit on the number of guests invited and the dishes to be served. So, now what happens to the opulent shamianas or the destination weddings, the expensive trousseau, or gold wedding invites? Passing of this Bill is sure to affect various other satellite professions related to weddings. But are we ready to make our weddings any less extravagant? And what will happen to the Big Fat Punjabi Wedding and industries dependent on it?

A humble start 

Many may remember that during the period of Punjab insurgency, the Khalistan Commando Force had passed an order wherein only 11 family members were allowed to attend any marriage celebration. Of course, we are well past that dark period but alas we have also surpassed that number many times over. In fact, the number of invitees crosses the 500 mark quite often. 

Social anthropologist Reema Sodhi from New York attributes this change to the pride involved in the display of wealth, matching the standards and expectations set by society, and also lavish portrayal of weddings in Hindi films. “In today’s scenario, who can imagine a wedding within Rs 5-lakh budget? Weddings no longer signify meeting of two persons in love. Now, it is all about parents showing their kids how much they love them by showering money. Marriage has just become an equation where happiness is directly proportional to the display of wealth,” she adds.

The after-effects 

Trimming the wedding budget is going to have a direct impact on many small industries (if we may call them so) associated with this big event. Wedding trousseau apparently would be the first section to come under the scissor! The bride and the groom usually spend crores on dresses for various functions, usually by India’s top fashion designers who only dole out wedding trousseau each season. 

Wedding planner and fashion designer Harmeet Bakshi from Sangrur, Punjab, calls the Bill absolutely unfeasible. “A Rs 5-lakh wedding, are you kidding me! A wedding where the bride’s family want their daughter to reach the venue on a chopper, a wedding where the family of the groom or bride wants Bollywood actors Salman Khan or Varun Dhawan to perform on mehndi, a wedding where groom wants his guests to be served world’s most expensive wines, and where baratiyon ka swagat is done with a gold coin....how will you organise a wedding in just Rs 5 lakh,” asks Harmeet. She also feels that most people are inspired Bollywood films to have lavish weddings. “They want to look like stars, wear what they wear, dance like them. They just want their weddings to be surreal not real.” 

Don’t pass the buck

But passing the blame for having a Big Fat Wedding to the film or fashion industry does not serve any purpose. These are merely some of the factors that lead to this expensive event. It would be interesting to see whether after passing of the Bill would still leave marriage ceremonies as a happy occasion? Will the trimming of expenditure also trim the joyous mood of the families and friends? One thing is sure that with the passing of the Bill, many associate sectors like wedding designers, caterers, decorators, wedding planners, photographers and celebrity performers will be affected in a big way. But aren’t these things that we can do without in weddings? Chennai-based social worker Mukesh Datta organises mass weddings for girls and boys from marginalised families across the state and elsewhere he is asked to do so. Datta wants people to look at a marriage ceremony as a beautiful moment in the life of two people and two families, which should be shared with other family members and friends, “It is certainly not the time to display your bank balance and jewellery. Besides, where is it written or who can guarantee that a wedding solemnised in a Rs 5 or Rs 10 crore budget will last longer than one organised in a few thousands or lakhs?” 

Marriages, as we have all heard, are made in heaven. But nowadays these are solemnised at lavish and opulent foreign destinations with hi-end gourmet spreads, reverberating with the songs by highly-paid celebrities. Though happily ever after is still no guarantee.