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When most people talk about the “Big Fat Indian Wedding”, they picture vibrant splashes of colours, with a few thousand saris swirling around the dancefloor.
But if you ask the people working behind the scenes – the reality is a strategic masterpiece that rivals running a city.
It is an energetic, coruscating rush of wonders, where “intimate” does not apply and legacies are forged.
According to Hema Kathik from Moonstruck Weddings, the scale has shifted from large to jaw-dropping.
Instead of a single day of celebration in the West, Indian weddings are an entire season. Moonstruck Weddings recently covered an event for the granddaughter of a founder of a progressive educational institute, that did not just last a weekend: it went on for 18 days.
Since the family had influence across the country, they held receptions in multiple states, with each of these events drawing between 30,000 and 50,000 guests.
Existing venues rarely handle crowds of that size, so families often have to commission custom sets.
It can take two months and hundreds of workers to build a temporary stadium just to house the festivities.
In other groups, such as traditional Jain households, the festivities might go on for up to 45 days with daily rituals and events.
Finding a romantic moment between the bride and groom in the middle of a boisterous crowd is the most difficult task for visual storytellers like Moonstruck Weddings.
Pre-production is essentially their solution.
Before the main event begins, the team frequently reenacts the extravagant wedding set at the client’s house or a private hotel banquet room.
By the time the bride enters the actual celebration, she is engrossed in hosting responsibilities and there is just no space for candids, so the couple takes their photographs in the quiet before the mayhem.
A modest army is needed to capture the major event.
A high-profile wedding often employs a staff of seventy photographers and videographers. In addition to drones and 360-degree rigs, they are utilizing equipment often found in professional sports, such as Spider Cams, which are cable-suspended camera systems that glide above the audience, to record the enormous scale of the venue.
Due to a cultural perspective that sees a wedding as a status symbol as well as a festivity, the Indian wedding business is currently estimated to be worth $130 billion.
Gold makes up a sizable portion of this price.
A South Indian bride frequently wears between 500 and 1 kilogram of gold.
This is multigenerational riches on show, not merely décor.
To save for the big day, families frequently adopt monthly gold programs and save for decades. A worldwide entertainment lineup is another result of the current generation’s increased purchasing power.
India’s affluent are increasingly bringing in foreign pop stars for Sangeet performances, following the example set by the Ambani family, who notably hired Beyoncé and Justin Bieber. The entertainment expenditure has skyrocketed, from Jennifer Lopez’s performance in Jodhpur to Akon’s in Udaipur.
However, there is a reassuring aspect of social responsibility amid the $130 billion whirlwind of Spider Cams, imported flowers, and global music stars.
When it comes to food waste, the sector has an unexpectedly stringent regulation.
Caterers and NGOs are connected by complex networks in big cities.
Following the visitors’ meal, fresh food is checked by health inspectors, packed, and sent to nearby shelters and orphanages.
Millions of people work in this intricate sector, which employs everything from scene designers to flower farmers.
For businesses like Moonstruck Weddings, it remains the greatest show on earth.
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