Vanchhana Tripathi, owner of Delhi-based salon, Pinklime is hopeful of the cash registers ringing again as the wedding season kickstarts from next month after witnessing challenging times in the past two years. “The last two years have been very tough due to the pandemic for our industry. So, we are really hopeful of doing brisk business in the upcoming wedding season. We are already seeing bookings and inquiries pouring in for bridal and party make-up services.,” she said.
The next three months will be critical for the wedding ecosystem in the country, especially after the pandemic had hit the big fat Indian wedding hard. Starting April 14, the auspicious period for weddings will begin for 2022 and for the first time in two years, the industry is looking forward to the summer season sans pandemic-related restrictions.
A ray of hope
Vikaas Gutgutia, MD and Founder, Ferns N Petals, said that the company’s wedding business is expected to see growth over pre-pandemic levels in this summer period. “Wedding celebrations from December to almost the first week of February were impacted due to Covid restrictions. Now, we are seeing very strong pent-up demand. All our venues for April are already sold out and we expect to host almost double the number of wedding functions in April this year compared to what we saw in April 2019. We are also receiving high number of inquiries for bookings for May and June,” he added.
Players said that there are nearly 43 auspicious dates for weddings in the April-July period. This comes as a refreshing change for businesses and service providers, whose wedding-related revenues were hit hard in the the past two summer seasons. due to the pandemic waves. Traders body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said traders are gearing up to meet the demand of consumers for wedding-related purchases with nearly 40 lakh weddings expected to be solemnized during this auspicious period across the country.
“Expenditure on weddings starts from ₹2- 5 lakh (per wedding) and can go up to ₹50 lakh- 1 crore range (per wedding) depending on their scale. In totality about ₹5 lakh crore is expected to flow in the commercial markets all over the country during this season,” said Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary General, CAIT.
He pointed out that categories such apparel, jewellery, footwear, dry fruits, worship items, electronics and consumer durables besides hospitality and banqueting will benefit tremendously from these wedding-related spends.
CAIT pointed out that a wide variety of service providers are also involved such as event management firms, wedding planners, orchestra, DJs, caterers, decorators, florists, photographers, band baja and procession wagons services among other. These service providers are also expected to see strong demand in the upcoming wedding season, it added.