Why Are Intimate Weddings Capturing Such Public Fascination?

Intimate weddings are recently experiencing a massive spike in interest from, well everyone. According to google trends, “Intimate weddings", are the top researched type of wedding over the past four (yes four!) years. Not only popular celebrities and pop stars but the modern-day mass and the populace too seems to be in love with this ongoing trend. Why exactly are Intimate weddings capturing such public fascination?

In an age of hashtags and Instagram reels memories often take the back seat and capture every moment one lacks to sink in, at the moment. “Relationships are much more important than customs and traditions are,” says Nandini Bhattacharjee Kadam, now 32, working as an HR manager in an energy renewal company back in Bangalore.

On 25th October 2021, Nandini tied the knot with her boyfriend of seven years in an intimate affair comprising only close friends and family at her garden in Mumbai, Maharashtra “It was the happiest and smartest decision of our lives, we got the luxury to live and sink in every moment of that day” she remembers her wedding day with only tears of joy and endless conversations. “We didn’t want to keep getting married” as quoted by Kadam, she says convincing her partner and the rest of the family was as easy as pie, as all of them wanted to conduct the wedding in their way and contribute to making it as chaos-free as possible.

“If I were to do it again, I’d do it in the same way,” Kadam concludes.

The history of Intimate weddings traces far back to 1929-1933 when The great depression hit and people back in the day couldn’t afford the luxury of lavish weddings. “What was then a mere ritual has now become an entirely new kind of wedding. Adding to that I think people earlier thought a lot about other people’s judgments and opinions which is not the case today anymore and we are not complaining! It's really funny that in Intimate weddings you have more time to focus on the details and the overall aesthetic which is not the case otherwise” Daniel Syiem, wedding planner and co-founder of Daniel Syiem’s House of Pearls, Shillong. Syiem mentions that the in and out of Intimate weddings has been constant in the industry, but the recent rise of it is because of the pandemic which has in a way demanded people into conducting weddings in this regard.

An Intimate wedding means working or having a limited guest list.

But, having said that they also aren’t necessarily a smaller budget wedding in fact, in quite a few cases the bride and the groom will splurge more on their guests because instead of using a $20,000 wedding budget to create an event for 500 people they can use the same amount and give 120 people an amazing experience. More than the economical front, it's often seen that in an ordinary Indian wedding the bride and the groom are the busiest of all, engaged in the customs and traditions which makes it a little chaotic for them to have fun in their ‘D-Day’. An intimate wedding turns out as a fresh breather that way which is why it is opted mainly by millennials and Generation Z’s.

Suggested Read:

Be Yourself And Enjoy: Five Brides Who Had Fun On Their Wedding Day

Mukul Kapur, photographer and founder of The grey space on intimate weddings, “We are now making a way to a new era of a wedding culture that focuses more on the joy and love that comes with a new union, rather than on the size of the space, the number of guests, and the amount of money spent on opulent showings.” Kapur also mentions the kind of joy and peace he achieves by being a part of such private affairs, “These kinds of projects are by far my most favourite, the reason is simply because of the affair is private and exclusive, as a photographer  you get a lot of time and creative space. Here, the memories hold more importance than the decor and the grandeur of the wedding.”

In the pre corona era, every year nearly 7.5 million weddings were performed in India. An average Indian wedding costs between 5 lakhs to 20 crore rupees, which is a good chunk of money for many. It has been noted that smaller weddings mean smaller budgets (in most cases at least). But things are now taking a turn, people are choosing to either travel more or donate more or do other things with that kind of money.

Image: Rajkummar Rao / Instagram

Be it Ariana Grande’s and Dalton Gomez’s grand intimate wedding or Dia Mirza and Vaibhav Rekhi’s at-home intimate wedding, the private affair seems to be quite popular amongst noted celebrities and gen zee millennials. More and more couples are ditching the usually chaotic and comparatively fuller weddings and saying yes to back in the game, fresh, and breezy Intimate weddings. The fact that an event that is probably life-changing for two families has become so much more lighter and buzz-free in a culture like Indian culture is insane and people following that and making their own story from it is beyond beautiful!

The views expressed are the author's own.