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INDIAN NUPTIALS can be garish business. The groom often visits the site on horseback or Royal Enfield motorbikes. Portable DJ the sets, powered by car batteries, blow up Bollywood hits. Traffic in busy streets is regularly blocked to accommodate wedding processions. Marriage in India is also big business. KPMG, a consulting firm, estimates the wedding industry’s revenue to be around $ 50 billion. Before the pandemic, they were increasing by 25% per year.
As elsewhere, covid-19 has forced many Indian couples to postpone their marriage. It may also have changed the way they operate. With large weddings on hold due to their super-diffusion potential, many informal caterers, coconut water vendors, ice cream parlors, wedding card printers, and flower vendors find it difficult to delay weddings. Online services, on the other hand, are booming. Matrimony.com, one of the largest, has seen a revenue increase of at least 20%, year-over-year, in each of its last four quarters. Shaadi.com, one of the oldest such sites in India, has seen an increase in the number of subscribers. And wedding platforms that help families organize and even host weddings online are emerging.
Digitization even extends to courtship displays. The bride and groom can no longer show up in person, sometimes perform on stage and sit down for talks with the parents of their choice through a desk, speed-dating style. But in India, where arranged marriages remain common, parents and matchmakers still need to be involved. And now Zoom.
Murugavel Janakiraman, boss of Matrimony.com, expects his new video calling feature for presentations to persist, not least because it deals with clients’ common grouse that their profile picture of their choice embellishes reality. During last year’s nationwide shutdowns, video calls also allowed couples to continue courting virtually. Another big matchmaker, Jeevansathi.com, has seen their video meeting count increase more than 11 times. The duration of calls has increased tenfold.
Pre-wedding functions are also increasingly coming online. Couples seek the blessing of elders by touching the laptop screen instead of their feet, says Kanika Subbiah, founder of WeddingWishList.com, a wedding platform. WedMeGood, an app, hosts vendors like makeup artists, photographers, caterers, and priests (along with their immunization status).
Some cautious families have arranged for health worker visits to guests’ homes for testing before attending an in-person wedding. Alternatively, you can celebrate from a distance. WeddingWishList has hosted over 100 weddings in its virtual rooms. And the business opportunity doesn’t end when the last party animal runs out of steam. Ms. Subbiah has extended her services to online baby showers. ■
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This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Greetings Update”
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