The Indian Wedding Industry Is Becoming Increasingly Bespoke, Personalised And Proficient

In India, weddings are not just an industry but an emotion. Indians sing and dance and cry at weddings. There are classical, folk, and film songs dedicated to weddings and ceremonies and rituals that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. A wedding in India is not just special because it brings two people together but also because it blends families. The sentiments, dreams and aspirations that are invested in it, make a wedding special whether it is small and intimate or a big and fat celebration.

Anyone who has worked in this industry or has watched it closely can say with confidence that the future of the Indian wedding industry is bright, beautiful and full of promise. It is a fairy tale brimming with interesting twists. Fuelled by a million emotions, it will grow bigger, better, and also evolve to keep up with the changing aspirations of the clients.

In a departure from the old school wedding halls and tent options, today, modern couples want to personalise even the smallest of design touches like place cards and floral centrepieces to make sure their wedding is unlike any other. They want to blend tradition with individuality to tell their own story and this is where professional designers come in.

Wedding designers bring diverse ideas to life and help streamline the industry. They customise structures, installations, and backdrops that a couple resonates with at a deep, emotional level and bring in multiple proficiencies to give them a memory of a lifetime.  It is now becoming increasingly clear to clients as well as the stakeholders in this industry that wedding design is a highly specialised sector. People are finally learning to differentiate between wedding planners, designers, artisans, hospitality professionals, and logistics providers and that is a welcome change.

Here are some more changes that will redefine the future of the wedding industry:

Collaborators will co-create unique experiences:

As the wedding business expands, designers are learning that their collaborations will define the quality of their work. Collaborations across every department in weddings are going to be critically important. While designing a wedding from scratch, it is also important to synergise with artisans, artists, curators, graphic designers, visualisers, light engineers, and sound engineers who commit to a certain level of excellence. It is important to work with like-minded professionals with a credible work ethic and aesthetic sensibility so that unique experiences can be co-created. This trend is becoming increasingly prevalent and there is little or no space for mediocrity in the business. A vast network of positive connections in various artistic fields will also bring more creative opportunities your way.  The quality of your collaborations will decide your net worth. Not just for designers but for everyone. 

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Bespoke weddings are here to stay

Weddings are no longer designed by the book. As a team, we have received requests to style weddings around even Impressionist painters and holiday destinations and have recreated the bling of Bali, the colours of Italy, and the romance of Paris to transport couples to the places they love. The point is that the era of generic weddings is over. Couples want their special day to be designed around their favorite colours, cherished memories and specially curated aesthetics. They want each guest to feel included in the celebrations. Today, be it gifting, the seating arrangements, the furniture, or the lighting options, no detail is too small. To style distinctive and unique weddings every single time, designers are creating a resource-rich catalogue of design references, exquisite fabrics, crafts and furniture. High-end prop companies will also emerge in large numbers in the near future.

Green weddings will grow popular

According to a recent news report, up to 3,000-4,000 kilos of food gets wasted in weddings and the carbon footprint of a big wedding can be huge thanks to heaps of single-use plastics, floral waste, and props that are not recyclable or are made from non-biodegradable materials. To minimise waste, we have started collaborating with NGOs to ensure that excess food and flowers are put to good use. To make the wedding industry sustainable and responsible, designers will have to switch to the principles of recycling, upcycling and reusing curios, backdrops, furniture, and materials sooner than later. A lot of couples now opt for digital invites or choose recycled or sustainable seed paper. Getting married in the great outdoors or in a space with built-in decor and natural beauty will also gain popularity. Many couples also go for potted plants or garden settings instead of bouquets or floral centre-pieces and the trend is gaining momentum.

Food will be curated and styled to perfection

Gone are the days of haphazardly laid buffets where people had to line up to ladle food on their plates. Catering experts now curate recipes from all over the world and create cuisine themes in keeping with the specifications of the clients. Then the designers do their best to style the ambience be it for sit-down dinners with plated meals, or farm to table experiences amid rusticity, or family-style spreads with shared platters, or even an exquisite cocktail evening. Each meal now takes into consideration dietary restrictions and a bespoke flavour palette. Every napkin, place mat and morsel is styled to perfection in the luxury wedding sector and designers work with the caterers to create stunning displays with flowers, well-chosen lighting accents, exclusive tableware, and artifacts.

Wedding design will become a specialised industry

As the wedding industry grows, wedding-related design schools will emerge to offer specialised courses to aspirants keen to join the business. A proficient wedding designer in any case is on par with architects and interior designers but with a degree and certification courses, the industry will have many more trained professionals. Trained designers will also provide 3D renderings of the entire experience to their clients just as architects do and the industry will become more systematic, skilled, organised, and professional. There are a lot of design schools in India but this is a vertical that could grow with time.  The Indian wedding industry is slowly but surely becoming technologically smarter and more proficient and innovative than ever before.

Ambika Gupta is the Creative director and founder of The A- Cube Project. The views are the author's own.