The Comeback Of Indian Destination Weddings

Bhavnesh Sawhney Feb 15, 2021

Destination weddings have been exceedingly popular in the Indian Wedding Market pre-covid. It has been a trend that almost everyone seemed to be following. The destination wedding trend is one that just makes the big fat Indian weddings, bigger and better.

However, 2020 came to be the year of change. The Indian Wedding Industry, an industry that is worth billions of dollars has taken a great hit due to the pandemic. Every social gathering needs human interaction and hence weddings faced a mighty downfall in 2020. So much has changed since the pandemic of March 2020. The weddings that were happening got postponed and as for the weddings scheduled for this year as well, the risk factor had to be taken into account.

The entire wedding, tourism and hotel industry came to a standstill and had been overcome by uncertainty overnight on the onset of this pandemic. Even after the restrictions had been eased a little, the entire industry could only rely on pre-planned weddings. Acceptance of this reality was the only way out. And it was exactly what happened. The industry on a whole accepted this harsh reality and moved ahead by adapting and re-imagining.

The innovations and creativity by wedding planners have been amped up tenfold to increase clientele. Safety protocols and procedures had to be incorporated in all aspects of the weddings. The good news is destination weddings are still all the hype post lockdown.

When destination weddings initially started, they served the purpose of hosting close friends and family. But the idea of destination weddings became a huge hit, so much so that each one was more extravagant and bigger than the other. This goes to show that although the weddings are smaller doesn’t mean the couple can’t have the wedding of their dreams.

The new covid norms pose restrictions on the number of guests that can attend a wedding, making a destination wedding much more intimate. A destination wedding can now be a celebration with your close friends and family, allowing planners a chance to add that extra oomph and luxe to a wedding, that couldn’t be done when catering to larger crowds.

Although a lot of people opted for safe online weddings, once the restrictions were eased a little, wedding planners took the opportunity to make intimate weddings, grander than ever. It has given wedding planners the time to focus on the most intricate of details and a lot of time to rethink, to optimise the situation and to figure out a way to make the couple as happy as they could be by customizing their needs.

Wedding planners have taken it in their stride to make destination weddings more and more personalized. Personalization is key. Every aspect of a destination wedding has been conceptualized in such a way that it tells us a story about the couple and their lives. Post lockdown, this personalization has been made easy. You can now curate personalized gifts and hampers for all guests because the number of guests is much lesser than it used to be. A destination wedding

during this time is a great idea seeing as many people have concerns about travelling. This way the family can keep the cap laid out by the Government without upsetting anyone.

Destination weddings require a lot of skill, time, planning, expertise, and resources. Procuring of these resources is also of dire importance in such weddings. Due to the pandemic, a lot of local businesses have taken a hit, so going local from the destinations in which these weddings are being held is the way to go.

Destinations which are most commonly opted for in the wedding industry are Goa, Jaipur, Udaipur, Kerala, and Andaman Nicobar Islands. Basically, any place with scenic or ancestral importance, and India is lucky to have so many of such locations.

The most important change post lockdown in destination weddings has been the safety and sanitary protocols. Wedding companies have gone above and beyond to ensure that all weddings happening are being executed in the safest and cleanest ways possible.

The destination weddings sector has surely been up and running this entire season and by following standard norms and procedures they can bring about radical changes in the industry as a whole.