By ANI

NEW DELHI: The 54$ billion wedding services market is a huge opportunity with 10 to 12 million marriages set to take place every year (KPMG report, 2014).

To understand how the young Indians look at planning their own wedding, Matrimony.com undertook The Big Fat Indian Wedding Market Survey 2018 in which 9246 people all over India had participated online.

The survey revealed that 20.6% of females were planning to spend Rs.10 to 20 lakh while it was 11.2% of males for the same spending bracket. 6.1% female respondents said they were going to spend Rs. 20 to 40 lakh on the wedding.

Talking about the 2018 Big Fat Indian Wedding Market Survey, Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder and CEO – Matrimony.com, whose flagship brand is the leading online matchmaking service, BharatMatrimony, said, “As a market leader, we wanted to understand how today’s younger generation looks at a wedding. We were not surprised that for Indians, wedding is still the biggest event in their lives and that they’re ready to spend their life savings to make it the most memorable lifetime event. The insights prove that the rich Indian wedding tradition continues to flourish with the biggest gathering of family, relatives and friends.”

WEDDING BUDGETS

In tune with the prevailing tradition of wedding expenses being heavier on the bride’s side, more 20.6% of females indicated they were going to spend Rs. 10 to 20 lakh while it was 11.2% of males for the same spending bracket. In the same spending bracket, North India indicated highest propensity to spend with 18.6%, South 12%, West 11.1% and East 10.9%.

6.1% female respondents said they are ready to spend Rs. 20 to 40 lakh on the wedding, while 3% males opted to spend the same amount.

JEWELLERY

22.14% females responded that they’d be spending Rs. 4 to 5 lakh on wedding jewellery, while 13% said more than Rs. 5 lakh and 13.89% indicated they’d be spending more than Rs. 10 lakhs. For the males, it was 19.52%, 8.1% and 6.0% respectively.

The finding also revealed that 50.98% of females and 66.24% of males will be spending upto 3 lakhs for wedding jewellery. One needs to keep in mind that most families tend to purchase jewellery in small chunks over the teenage years of a girl and the above is only what they plan to spend before the wedding.

Region wise North and South did not show much of a difference in the spend patterns as 20.38% of the former said they’d be purchasing jewellery worth Rs. 4 to 5 lakh, 9.47% would spend more than Rs. 5 lakh and 6.24% more than Rs. 10 lakh. While the same for South was 20.94%, 9.62% and 8.54% respectively.

FOOD

31.84% of females indicated that they were planning to spend between Rs. 2 and 5 lakh, while 7.87% said they’d spend more than Rs. 5 lakh. It was 27.62% and 6.90% for males respectively.

35.32% in the North said they plan to spend Rs. 2 to 4 lakh, while East was 29.36%, South was 26.49% and West was 25.78%. In the more than Rs. 5 lakh expenses group, it was 11.89%, 6.93%, 5.57% and 6.14% respectively for the four regions.

DESTINATION WEDDING

27% of male respondents wanted a destination wedding, while only 19.3% males were looking forward to a destination wedding.

29% of respondents from the North preferred a destination wedding, for South it was 24%, West 25% and East 22.8%.

WEDDING PLANNER

40.31% of males indicated that they are planning to use a wedding planner while 36.21% females indicate yes for the same.

WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY

27.08% females indicated that they were likely to spend between Rs. 50k and 1 lakh, while 25.84% men indicated the same. 5.85% females indicated they’re likely to spend more than Rs. 1 Lakh, while 5.70% men indicated the same.

WEDDING CLOTHES

20.22% females indicated that they were likely to spend more than Rs. 1 Lakh on their wedding clothes, while 40.67% said they’d spend between Rs. 50k to 1 lakh. While the same for males were 15.24% and 39.92%.

WEDDING MANDAP

25.12% females indicated that they were likely to spend one to Rs. 2 Lakh on the wedding mandap, while 6.74% said they’d spend above Rs. 2 lakhs. While the same for males were 22.02% and 5.81%.

HONEYMOON

When asked about their favourite honeymoon destination, Indians across gender indicated Goa, Kerala, Shimla and Manali as the preferred destinations within India. And Switzerland, Maldives and Singapore as their preferred international honeymoon destinations.