New Delhi: With the festive season eventually sulking down, the wedding season is gearing up in full swing. The national capital, Delhi is experiencing the Shaadi season, and here’s how. With relatively low Covid cases in the city, the guest list has been limited to 200 people, heavy saaya dates have been booked solid. Though the latter half of the month will see a lot of wedding functions, November 21 will register almost 8,000 weddings in Delhi.
“November 18-20 are totally booked for functions with the weddings being on November 21. In fact, the venues were all booked for this day since October itself,” said Sumathy Bachchan, the wedding planner. While another wedding planner Chinmayi Jain stated, “November 21 is the most auspicious day of the year. I have five weddings booked on this day and I also have my friend’s wedding to attend in Delhi as well. So things will need to be figured out…We stopped taking more orders for that day last month itself.”
Anil Thadani from Jea Band stated that this month he had to book more weddings than what they usually do other years. He added, “In Delhi, there are about 7000-8000 weddings approximately on that day. Every year, even if it’s a heavy saaya day, we don’t book more than six to seven weddings, but this year we have booked 10 weddings. Some of these weddings is of people who booked with us earlier but their weddings were delayed due to Covid restrictions. People are also scared of the third wave and want to finish getting married before cases go up. Sabko abhi hi karni hai shaadi, ki third wave aa gayi toh kya karenge.”
On the other hand, Anam Zubair from WeddingWire India, a popular online marketplace that connects with customers opined that currently, it is becoming challenging to book a decent venue. “Couples are having a hard time booking a decent venue at that date. Most of the preferable venues are already pre-booked for half or whole day. It is becoming quite challenging for vendors too because the demand is rising rapidly,” he said.
While Swati Chirpal, another wedding planner adds, “Hotels have divided their venues to accommodate as many weddings as they can on November 21. People are sticking to the 200-250 guest limit, but other than that, nothing has changed. People want to go all out. It’s challenging for wedding planners also as we like to be personally present at the weddings and this is why I don’t prefer taking on too many weddings on the same day. This year, we are actually having to refuse customers who want to book on November 21.”
Priests are also finding it hard to divide their time slot on November 21 to carry out the wedding. RK Pandey from Shalimar Bagh, a wedding pandit said, “Saaya bahut bhaari hai aur humein bhi 3-4 shaadiyon mein jaana hoga. Jinki shaadi hai, unke parivaar wale hi humein pick aur drop karenge. Aaj kal sab prefer karte hai ki shaadi jaldi ho jaye, toh uske hisaab se dekhna padhega.”
Some people well in advance have also planned their weddings in advance to neglect the hassle. Sushma Arora, a homemaker from Delhi said that she along with her family made sure that every arrangement of her son’s wedding are booked in advance. She added, “Humne toh venue August mein ho finalise aur book kar leeya tha. Iss din saaya bhaari hai aur bahut saari shaadhiyan hai Delhi mein. Aise mein, we wanted to be very sure of getting the place we wanted.”
