The Triple 'I' Effect For Weddings- Innovative, Intimate And Intentional

Aditya Mahagaonkar Apr 20, 2021

It’s been over a year since COVID-19 hit us like a brick, and it doesn’t seem to be leaving our lives just yet. Amidst the insanity and uncertainty of the pandemic, the wedding industry took a major hit, the blow of which continues to be faced even today. Wedding celebrations, especially in India, are almost a synonym for social gatherings, and that is precisely what is supposed to be avoided to curtail the spread of the virus any further.

2020 was a specifically challenging year, the first one where we didn’t have a single event to cover from March all the way through August- a huge span of 6 months. It was only after this massive lull in the industry that things started to slowly pick up in the wedding space, but still meant there would be numerous changes required in the way a traditional celebration is carried out. And this is where the Triple ‘I’ effect came into play.

Innovative

A term we use so often today for things we didn’t think were possible but have managed to create solutions for, innovation is the new key to survival. A huge game changer for almost every industry and something that appears to be evolving with every passing day, some of the changes we witnessed in the wedding industry would definitely be categorised as innovation.

Change began with client meetings taking place on Zoom and Google Meetings which posed as a challenge for everyone right off the bat, but became a concept of comfort that was adjusted to in a short time frame. People then moved to hosting wedding celebrations at home, which entailed improvising decor options to fit a limited space and ensuring that a mundane setting looked mesmerizing and unforgettable!

With smaller venues and limited guests being physically present at the occasion, we had to think of ways to involve the other guests virtually as well, be it via live streaming or sending each invitee a customised wedding hamper with food curations that made them a part of the festivities. One of the latest developments in the industry has been created using facial recognition, where guests of the bride and groom and their respective families get to exclusively view the professionally shot images where they are present, expelling the process of going through a few hundred images to find a handful of your own.

Intimate

With an upper limit on the number of guests that could be physically attending the wedding functions, each ceremony became heavily intimate. There are always a few guests that mean the world to the couple and families at their wedding, but this time around, those were the only attendees, boosting the emotional quotient of the celebrations by a large extent. While as a nation we love the grandeur and lavishness of Indian weddings, the intimate crowd allows for a close bond that is visible in all the happy faces we have been capturing in images and films for our clients.

Intentional

A notion that is still taking shape in its own time, clients are thinking twice before they make decisions about their wedding. From opting for destination weddings to move away from areas and cities exercising Covid restrictions to booking entire properties just to reduce the spread in case of any infection, people are pondering over each aspect carefully. A popular practice has become to get each guest tested before and after the wedding celebrations, a process that requires great logistical coordination, but increases the safety factor by many folds.

Everyone has steadily embraced the idea of intimate weddings, and are now celebrating this as a new norm, in our new reality. We as photographers are now shooting most weddings with a guest list of just 80-200 people, something we’d never imagine would happen, but a change that hasn’t been able to alter the magic we experience at the ceremonies. Each time the government imposes fresh rules, the wedding industry takes a turn to a new direction. With a whole year gone by, we’re still nowhere near the end of these testing times, and we foresee weddings for at least the rest of 2021 to thrive in the usage of the Triple ‘I’ effect, long before we can go back to witnessing our beloved big fat Indian weddings once again.