From Alps To Underwater Vows, Weddings Turn Extravagant & Unique

There's clearly no limit to how dramatic a wedding can be.

When US-based childhood sweethearts Urvashi Kumar, 29, and Uttkarsh Dixit, 30, planned their wedding, they envisioned a royal heritage celebration in India.

After their engagement in 2022, they spent seven days exploring places in Rajasthan before choosing Raffles Udaipur, one of India's largest island properties.

Despite securing the venue 18 months in advance, Kumar, an artificial intelligence specialist at Snapchat, made three more trips to India to finalise the wedding details -- hiring a planner, choreographer, photographer, and selecting decor and attire.

The couple also had a wedding proposal in the Maldives, and a pre-wedding photoshoot that captured them on land, water and air.

The camera followed them from the archaeological sites of Petra and the desert valley of Wadi Rum in Jordan to Cappadocia and Istanbul in Turkiye, and then to the Dead Sea, and also on a hot air balloon.

The couple's wedding in late December was a three-day event with 200 guests, and the family reserved all the rooms at Raffles.

Kumar meticulously planned every detail: Guests arrived at the jetty to be greeted by rose petals, ghoomar dancers, and Hindustani classical musicians.

The festivities included a milni lunch, cocktail party, and multiple photo sessions. The pheras took place in the early evening, followed by a sundowner party. "We incorporated Indian traditions, but wanted the celebration to feel like a holiday," says Kumar.

Estimated to be around $130 billion, according to brokerage Jefferies, India's wedding industry is the world's second largest, next only to China.

It is almost double that of the US. In terms of consumption, it is only behind food and groceries.

It remains a huge economic driver, fuelling the growth of several other industries: Hospitality, travel, jewellery, watches, apparel, automobiles.

Jefferies notes that an average Indian spends Rs 12 lakh (Rs 1.2 million) on a wedding. And if it's a luxury destination wedding, the cost shoots up to at least Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million), according to WedMeGood's Annual Industry Report 2023-24.

Mehak Sagar Shahani, co-founder of the Gurugram-based wedding planning Web site and app, points out that around 60 per cent of luxury weddings are, in fact, destination weddings.

Rajesh Namby, general manager at Raffles Udaipur, says that a typical two-night, three-day wedding at the property can cost upwards of Rs 3.5 crore (Rs 35 million), which might not include entertainment like DJs, live bands, and other performers.

Hot air balloon rides, heritage walks, live musical performances, and wellness treatments are common at such events, with couples sparing no expense to create memorable experiences for their guests.

An invitation to be amazed

Wedding invitations have evolved too, with detailed information about the wardrobe, daily activities, and personalised content about the couple.

Puneet Gupta, founder of Delhi-based Puneet Gupta Invitations, which specialises in couture wedding cards, says, "Earlier, one function was highlighted. Now, every event gets attention in the invites."

He recalls designing a virtual reality (VR) invite for a destination wedding in Bahrain, where 200 invitation boxes were sent out with VR headsets showing highlights of the destination. There are also e-vites, complete with QR codes for the location and for downloading its images.

Luxury invitations have also become more personalised, with people spending lakhs on handcrafted boxes, Tanjore-inspired invites, and handwoven patola potlis.

For actor Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal's wedding, Gupta designed a kitsch 1980s Bollywood-style matchbox invitation.

For a wedding at Udaipur's Jagmandir Island Palace, he arranged for a Rajasthani miniature artist to recreate the scene live for the guests.

Udaipur is no stranger to opulent weddings. Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar, chairman and managing director of the HRH Group of Hotels, Udaipur, says they've seen everything, from ice skating rinks with professional skaters to the streets of Chandni Chowk and Agra being recreated at their heritage properties, which include Shiv Niwas Palace, Gajner Palace and Jagmandir Island Palace.

"We've hosted carnivals with ferris wheels and recreated iconic Indian streets. Creativity peaks during weddings here," Mewar says.

Destination weddings have reached new heights of extravagance. Social media influencer Sonam Babani's wedding to Neil Sanghvi in Zermatt, Switzerland, involved meals at Michelin-starred restaurants, flowers flown in from the Netherlands, and decor designed to match the backdrop of the Swiss Alps.

Her mandap was set at 2,200 metres in Zermatt Peak, one of the world's top ski chalets. Though intimate, Babani says it involved intense planning. "Smaller weddings require as much -- or more -- attention to detail," she says.

Sanghvi had proposed to her in 2019 at Four Seasons Resort Maldives with a carpet of rose petals floating in a pool with the message: 'Will you marry me?'

Couples, like brand consultant Gayatri Chibba, are sometimes choosing to do it all themselves. Chibba's wedding took place at the 16th-century Samode Palace, Rajasthan, where instead of a wedding planner, she personally managed every detail.

"I wanted a regal wedding, and I oversaw everything myself," she says. Her haldi ceremony was held in the venue's iconic Sheesh Mahal, usually off-limits for events. "Intimate weddings allow for more personalised experiences."

Boutique hotels are popular for their unique offerings. In Bhopal, the Jehan Numa Group of Hotels provides a range of activities for wedding guests, from spa treatments to jungle safaris.

"Some couples have their pheras in the jungle or with our horses as a backdrop," says Faiz Rashid, director of Jehan Numa Group.

Many guests, he adds, extend their stay for post-wedding safaris or spa retreats, besides museum trips, visits to UNESCO-protected sites, and heritage walks and food trails. "We also get enquiries from cities like Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Ahmedabad," says Rashid.

"Guests have to be kept engaged," adds Pratiti Rajpal, general manager at Ronil Goa, Hyatt's five-star boutique resort that caters to, among others, the demand for destination bachelor and bachelorette parties, and "intimate second weddings -- a growing category".

Guests are treated to personalised cocktails, bespoke music, yacht sundowners, casino visits, and fun DIY workshops.

Beyond the festivities, destination weddings at times incorporate charitable efforts. Kolkata businessman Alok Tibrewala, whose daughter's wedding took place at Alila Fort Bishangarh (Rajasthan), used the occasion to donate computers to schools, installed solar lights, and organised meals for 5,000 villagers.

"A well-thought-out wedding can benefit the local community," he says.

With the wedding over, he's now planning a trip with his wife to Kerala for an unwinding session.

Photos, please

The role of wedding photographers and filmmakers has become way more intense.

Vishal Punjabi, CEO of Mumbai-based Wedding Filmer, for instance, is busy till March and is already getting bookings for the 2025 winter weddings.

Punjabi has captured the weddings of all three Ambani siblings -- Isha, Akash and Anant -- along with celebrity couples like Anushka Sharma-Virat Kohli, Deepika Padukone-Ranveer Singh, and others.

He specialises in films, not still photography, creating what he calls "biopics" after engaging with couples and their families.

His footage, sometimes over 52 hours, is edited into either short 2-3 minute videos with original songs that are recorded by professional singers or full-length 2.5-hour films.

Costs range from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 20 lakh (Rs 500,000 to Rs 2 million) per day, with a crew of two to five.

Punjabi, who is developing training modules for smaller cities, says social media has driven demand for wedding films that go viral.

Akash Agarwal, co-founder of WeddingNama, says that couples now hire teams specifically to capture "vertical pictures and videos" for social media.

Some even bring in social media managers to create hashtags and upload content in real time.

This season, Agarwal has been hired for proposal and pre-wedding shoots across Jordan, Istanbul, and Europe, with enquiries even from Iceland.

He's captured couples underwater and on mountaintops. One bride, he recalls, wanted only social media content -- no albums, just online reels and videos.

While Rajasthan's palaces and Goa's beaches remain top wedding destinations within India, other spots like Khajuraho, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Mahabalipuram, and Rishikesh are gaining popularity.

Shahani of WedMeGood adds that international weddings are on the rise, with couples making bold statements globally.

She recalls a planner being asked to airlift a mandap from Delhi to Dubai, and a viral video of an Indian groom skydiving into his Dubai wedding.

There's clearly no limit to how dramatic a wedding can be.

Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com