Vendors and caterers too are running out of business

VADODARA: Weddings of celebrity couples – Deepika Padukone-Ranveer Singh and Virat Kohli-Anushka Sharma – at Lake Como and Florence in Italy has added destination wedding to the latest fad lists of the Indian families.

But for Gujaratis, destination wedding is nothing new. Call it the ‘Akhand’ effect, Gujaratis have been pushing weddings out of the ‘dry’ state ever since the prohibition law was tightened.

This is evident from how wedding planner Radhika Talati has started diversifying by handling ‘besnas’ and ‘bhajan sandhyas’ to sustain her business in the state where the noose of prohibition has tightened in the last couple of years.

Until two years back, during this time of the year, Radhika would be busy handling nearly 25 marriages at a time within Vadodara. But since the last two years, she has seen a drastic drop in her business with an average of only five weddings for her to manage.

Not just wedding planners, the vendors who used to provide ‘faras khanas’ and caterers who used to serve an elaborate platter for the big fat weddings, are running out of business.

Gujaratis have started tying nuptial knots at destinations like Istanbul and Goa, Udaipur and Jodhpur and union territories of Daman and Dadra Nagar Haveli just to avoid social stigma of being caught just for having good times.

“It is not just about wedding planners like me. With the weddings moving out from Gujarat , the local catering business is suffering and so are the beauty parlours and make-up artists as everything is inter-connected,” said Radhika.

“The clients who have to keep their local connections alive organise just their receptions in Gujarat while other functions like ‘mehndi’, ‘sangeet’, cocktails and the wedding ceremony itself have moved out of state. Also, the expense on receptions is compromised,” she said.

DJ Yazad used to dish out latest Bollywood numbers in the city. “But now my touring has increased. Since last two years, more and more Gujaratis are organising wedding parties at Udaipur, Mount Abu, Jaipur or other destinations outside Gujarat,” said Yazad, who recently was in coastal town of Kovalam for a wedding party of a Gujarati in Kerala.

The party scenario in farm houses had gone dead after the ‘akhand’ farm house case. Now, even the landmark birthday parties that people used to celebrate are no longer held in Vadodara as ‘naughty at 40’ parties are shifting to destinations in Goa, Mumbai and nearby Rajasthan.

For Surtis flowing alcohol and bartenders serving cocktails is a must at the lavish weddings. But with stricter prohibition law and its implementation, the weddings are being pushed out of the state to cater the best Scotch whiskeys and wines to their guests. While the not-so-rich are taking their weddings to nearby liquors holes of Daman and Silvassa, the rich and elites are flying to Goa and even to Bangkok.

“Fifty per cent of my business comes from Surat, but a meagre number of clients hold weddings in the diamond city. Most of them want to hold a destination wedding, not only because of a fad but due to the prohibition law,” said Reetu Jain, a Mumbai-based wedding planner who has organized weddings in Bangkok for Surti lalas. She admitted because the weddings are planned out of the state, the local vendors are losing business to the hotels and resorts out of Gujarat.

As the trend shows that more destination weddings are being planned, in reality this is no good news for wedding planners as well. At a destination wedding, a client would be spending more outside Gujarat compared to what he would be shelling out within the state. But for the local wedding planners, this has not added to their monetary gains.

