After 8 months of planning and 19 days of on-ground production, a majestic set was created by Experiential Weddings by Studio Neelabh. The décor of the sangeet theme was inspired by the theme ‘An evening in Paris'. To bring the theme to life Studio Neelabh created a mesmerizing set. The entrance for the social event had a humongous moving windmill wrapped in red velvet followed by a red carpet while the stage resembled a mix of a life size Eiffel Tower and an enormous mascarade face mask. The main challenge of the wedding emerged in its execution as unexpected thunder showers and lighting struck upon arrival of guests making everything fall apart. However, the over-enthusiastic team of Experiential Weddings by Studio Neelabh managed to salvage the event and put everything back together in record-breaking time. The party was thrown-open with bubbly Karan Tacker playing host to the night and wooing the audience and the musical duo of Vishal & Shekhar performed on a few of their ground-breaking hit songs. Moving on with the wedding festivities, the reception at the MMRDA grounds saw another amazing set comprising of props inspired by The Royal Palace Gardens. The set was created inspired by Chiragin Palace of Istanbul with a fusion of Greek architecture and the mood was set with violinists playing to the guests. Furthermore, at the event Studio Neelabh introduced its new brand, The Royal Affairs which is a venue based wedding design and Management Company, catering in all hotel weddings in Mumbai. The brand currently is exclusively affiliated with Turf Club, Grand Hyatt and Trident Hotel.
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Panchhi events, an event company based out of Dehradun recently executed the 200 year celebrations of the Gorkhali regiment in the Indian Army. Being a 4 day event, Panchhi events was shouldered the responsibility of to create something spectacular for over 10,000 in attendance while taking good care of security at the same time as the likes of CM of Uttarakhand and CM of Sikkim were also to be present at the event. The event company rose to the challenge by conceptualizing and creating 3 light and sound shows for the audience in 3 different languages of Nepali, Hindi and English all played once on all the four days of the event. These light and sound shows demonstrated the history of the regiment in the army and instilled a spirit of nostalgia and pride amongst all the attendees. The main challenge for Panchhi events while executing the event was to engage the crowd in such large numbers. Speaking on how they overcame this hurdle, Rishabh Panchhi of Panchhi events said, “As the audience was also Gorkhali’s, we planned a lot of Gorkhali cultural programs which featured artists from all over the state and also included the special Kukhri Dance which is very popular for them. To further keep the audience engaged with the overall theme of the celebrations we also created a special film on the Journey of 200 years of the regiment.” Elucidating on the reaction of the audiences from the event Rishabh adds, “The attendees were became very emotional after knowing the journey of their regiment. They had no clue how much their soldiers have put in for the country. Though all 4 days of the event we were able to keep the attendees engrossed through elements like dances, live band performances etc. and they really enjoyed themselves.”
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The term ‘Wedding’ itself has no concrete definition. While some say it is a day where two lovers make their celestial bond official, a few others might feel it is an event that one organizes and pays for while others rejoice and dance away. Truly, weddingsare constantly evolving into more customized and more subjective experiences. And perhaps this is the reason why different people across the world are opting for some crazy and unique ways to celebrate their special day. Here’s our handpicked selection of few whacky weddings from around the globe- Oregon Weed Bar Wedding An interesting fact about living in Oregon is that the consumption of weed is permitted in small amounts. And basis this law, couple John Elledge and Whitney Alexander decided to give their guests a ‘mind altering’ experienceby setting up a weed tent. Alongside the open bar,the wedding celebration saw a weed tent and a ‘budtender’ to help guests in need of a little guidance. The celebrations saw 13 different varieties of pot being served to the guests. A special wedding planner from Lake Oswego's Bridal Bliss was brought on board to help with the legal proceedings and the couple also made special arrangements of safety transportation on their way back for the guests. The photographer claimed that she got the best candid photographs of the guests from the party. And the photos served as great memorabilia for those who couldn’t remember much from the wedding. Superheroes Wedding in England Every kid dreams of being a superhero but sadly life unfolds different plans for us doesn’t it. However, bride SharinWetherwell wasn’t willing to let go of her childhood dream so easily and therefore decided to have a superhero wedding to celebrate her special day. Sharindressed up as Wonder Woman and married her groom who wore a Batman costumeat their wedding. The guests of the wedding too followed the Superhero theme and even the families of the couple went along with the theme dressing as The Incredibles, Lara Croft and Iron Man. Interestingly Joker was in attendance too, but did not create any trouble. Wing WalkWedding Yes, being in love does gives wings to a lot of people but can you imagine getting married on top of the wings of two planes, 1,000 feet above the ground? Well, the adventurous couple Darren McWalters, and his bride Katie Hodgson had an unimaginable wedding strapped to the top wing of a biplane where Darren proclaimed his love to Katie who flew alongside on the wing of an identical aircraft. With the couples dressed in the traditional wedding attires, the ceremony was made official as the reverend flew ahead on the wings of a third aircraft and married the couple via an airborne communications system. The ceremony, previously delayed twice due to bad weather, had speakers throughout RFC Rendcomb Airfield, to communicate the congregation on the ground. LA Underwater Wedding with Sharks Most couples are on the lookout for exotic locations on the world map where they can have their dream wedding. Kym Dabney and Devon Brignoni were just another unique couple whose idea of a dream wedding was to haveit underwater, with sharks as attendees. The couple decided to have this unique wedding just because of the grooms love for ocean life and hence a team at the 120,000-gallon Lost City of Atlantis Shark Exhibit was hired to execute the challenging wedding. Even though the ‘environmental conditions’ left little room for choice, the adventurous couple refused to compromise on their outfits and wore regular elaborate wedding attires. Surprise In-flight Wedding in Rhodes Why book a venue for your wedding when you can get married mid- air? Sounds intriguing doesn’t it? Alexander entered a Valentine’s Day contest by Thomas Cook and was selected from 25 entries. Just after takeoff, he dropped on one knee, and proposed at 30,000 feet to Marieke van De Wal. The bride got her makeup done in the flight attendant galley while crew members hung flowers from the overhead bins. De Wal walked down the tiny aisle and was brought to tears as she discovered that her family and friends were hidden at the back of the plane.
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With an objective to bring various Décor Professionals under roof, The Décor’s Meet 2015 is an annual conference and exhibition of Décor Professionals that exhibits Decorators, Electrical Contractors, Florists and more. This event is hosted in a different city of Gujarat every year. This year, the 23rd Annual Conference took place in Surat, Gujarat over a period of two days - 3rd and 4th October’15 at the Surat Exhibition and Convention Center. The event was hosted by Surat Mandap Decorators & Electrical Association, with execution and management by U & I Resources Pvt. Ltd. The event kicked off on 3rd October with Exhibition Inauguration by Dr. Dakshesh R. Thakar, Vice-Chancellor, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University. The event was open only for registered delegates where a total of 4000 delegates attended the event through pre-registration process that took place two month prior and on-spot registrations. The attending delegates were also provided stay for two days and three meals on each day. A total of 150 stalls were set up for various Décor professionals who participated in the expo from all across India. The categories of stall at the expo included Tent Décor, Furniture, Plastic and Melamine Products, Carpet and Flooring, Flower Products, Electrical Goods and more. In the evening at 4 pm, a Seminar on Taxation was conducted by CNBC Tax Guru Subhash Lakhotia. At 8 PM, an entertainment session was organized for the attendees - hosted by anchor Manasvi Vyas, with performances by Indian Idol contestants Ananya Mishra and Tushar Jule and his band. On the following day, a seminar on GST was conducted by Mr. Mahendra Shah, National Chairman – CAIT at 10 am in the morning, followed by Annual General Meeting of Gujarat Mandap Hirers & Electrical Association post which the exhibition continued till late evening. The exhibition culminated with a gift distribution session for all the attending participants. Eminent guest that attended the event included Dr. Rajendrakumar (IAS), Collector, Surat, Mr. Mohan Seth, Chairman, All India Tent Dealers Welfare Association, Mr. Kartar Singh Kochhar, General Secretary, All India Tent Dealers Welfare Association, Mr. Manoharlal Gulati, President, All India Tent Dealers Welfare Association. Talking about the event, Mr. Harish Desai, Gujarat Mandap Hirers & Electrical Association commented, “The Annual Conference of Décor Professionals is a platform created for various professionals related to the industry to meet annually in one place. Surat Mandap Decorators and Electrical Association did a fantastic job on planning and hosting The Décor’s Meet 2015.” Adding further to the comments, Mr. Mukesh Mistry, President, Surat Mandap Decorators & Electrical Association said, “Our entire team worked with U & I Resources Pvt. Ltd. for four months to bring this event together. It was a pleasure working with them and we’re happy to see our gathered efforts turn into a successful event.” The Expo received a good response with 4000 delegates from the industry meeting under one roof for two days. This event provided the industry an opportunity to meet more than 150 manufacturers, service providers and traders directly with 3000+ prospective buyers.
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In the wake of the one of the most talked about October wedding of celebrity couple Harbhajan Singh and Geeta Basra, the soon to be married couple is hosting an exclusive Bollywood- themed bash at the Delhi Chhatarpur farmhouse on October 31. The exclusive invite to the party has been created by The Entertainment Design Co. which is owned by Kapil and Sandy Khurana. The card, which is in the shape of clapboard, has the names of the couple with details about the party on one side and embossed posters of yesteryear classics on the others. The Entertainment Design Co. said, “The idea for the design of the card is from Harbhajan and Geeta themselves. They wanted a Bollywood theme for the party and a filmi style card as well.” The party will be featuring some of the biggest names in the world of Bollywood and Cricket with the likes of Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Akshay Kumar, Hrithik Roshan, Rahul Gandhi, Nita and Mukesh Ambani likely to be on the guest list.
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The thing with Indian weddings is that they continue to be ‘bigger’ and ‘fatter’ year after year. Just when you think it cant get more outrageous in terms of opulence, you hear of an even more extravagant display of wealth, an even more ‘expensive’ performer at an even more exotic venue. At a recent event industry convention EMF ACE 2015 held at Ahmedabad, experts from the wedding industry Swati PandyaSood from Ferns & Petals, Keyur Patel from Prasang Events and Hemant Kale from Swaha WMC came together on a panel to discuss destination weddings and nailing the right model. It is evident that when exploring a new destination, partnerships with local service providers become important in order to pull together a show. To this Hemant Kale says, “When organizing a destination wedding local partners act like your backbone. Sure you may have thought of some great ideas but the support system to execute is formed by the local vendors.” But on what basis should one choose his partners? “Definitely not on the basis of cheapest cost”, states Kale. He adds, “Local partners should be carefully scrutinized, and once you have satisfactorily identified them, you need to simply trust them with their capabilities.” He suggests taking feedback from other event planners about a region before entering it. This allows one to have an inclination of the roadblocks that may be in store. Elaborating further on the topic, Keyur Patel suggests that before going ahead and suggesting a venue to a client it is extremely important planners know whether it would be feasible as per their budget. Many a times organizers get ahead of themselves and suggest a destination without anticipating the cost implications which is a terrible idea. Swati PandyaSood states, “At Ferns & Petals we pride ourselves for having a comprehensive databank of destinations, its local vendors, strategic alliance partners etc. This is extremely important to develop in order to provide the client with multiple options that lie within his budget. Now, the wedding industry repeatedly redefines the term ‘grand’ with every ostentatious wedding that takes place. But what should have a stronger focus- dreaming an impressive concept or assessing the practicality of the concept. For Hemant Kale the dream comes first. “Once I am convinced with an idea my focus immediately after is to sell the dream to the client. After that my sole focus is on ensuring the dream comes to life”, he says. Contradicting Hemant’s views Swati PandyaSood comments, “I would rather be practical and keep myself focused on something I am sure of rather than dream up something that may result in a potential disaster. This is a wedding we are talking about- it should be planned in a way that great memories can be created in a stress free environment for the guests. We cannot afford to get ahead of ourselves at the risk of causing inconvenience.” But one would think that to grow the destination weddings industry wouldn’t it become important to explore the globe and recommend newer locales? Swati says, “I am against repetition. Thailand, for example, has been done to death. But that being said, the client doesn’t care about the growth of our industry, he only cares about that one special day. In the end we are all operating as independent companies and incase something goes down it is our reputation on the line.” “Realizing a dream requires thorough research”, says Keyur Patel. “It can easily turn into a nightmare. Therefore it is important to move cautiously, plan and be prepared when organizing a destination wedding. You cannot afford to suffer any surprises.“ Speaking about their most important local partnerships, both Hemant Kale and Keyur Patel feel that management of logistics through an efficient hospitality partnership is the most critical.”
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“We are constantly thriving towards perfection and this wedding has only brought us one step closer”- says an elated Bhavnesh Sawhney, Director, Wedniksha Wedding Planners as he speaks about the grand wedding his company recently executed in Udaipur. Well, he certainly has all the reasons to be happy as Wedniksha is getting rave reviews about the glamorous wedding of Ruchi and Siddarth they recently organized in Udaipur. Every aspect and even the minute details of the wedding were given a lot of consideration as the brief given by the clients to execute the wedding was to create one of the grandest weddings of the year. Talking about deciding the overall theme of the event Sawhney says, “The wedding was inspired by the likes and wants of the client. We were told about their belief in Buddha and Lord Ganesha and we tried to translate that faith into elements at the various functions of the wedding. We decided to tweak the Royal theme to give it a unique feel.” The wedding started with a welcome dinner for the guest which was hosted at the Oberoi Udaivillas. The décor elements consisted of a massive golden tree which was situated at the center of the stage whilst there were florals scattered as center pieces which added to the look and feel of the place to elevate the ambience up a notch. The dinner lent itself to a performance by Benny Dayal whose tunes kicked in well with the vibe. The entertainment at the party further consisted of various different attractions like performances by samba podium dancers while playboy bunny girls and bar jugglers engaged the guests. DJ Suketu then took over the night spinning the latest tracks of the year which was an instant hit. “Udaipur is always a challenge logistically, transporting sets and décor elements by water to historic sites like Jagmandir and City Palace. Luckily for us, knowing the city as well as we do helped a great deal. We knew we were at the top of our game and pre-planned the boat schedules, turning the challenge into an opportunity for us to excel”-says Sawhney as he describes the challenges he faced while organizing the event. The décor theme for the mehndi the following day was folk inclined with a vibrant pink and orange theme set up an accompanied by colour-packed florals. The venue was designed to go with the theme performance by the Rajasthani folk artist and Punjabi singer Madhan Bala Sandhu. The Sangeet was held at the Zenana Mahal which became the most memorable celebration of the grand Punjabi wedding. The décor and setup of the stage featured a massive Buddha which was placed at the center of the stage alongside to chess horses with arches at either side which added to the theme. Mika Sing then took the stage and delivered an enthralling performance providing the perfect end to a great night. The D-day for the couple was designed to make them feel special in the Royal city. With the beautiful Jag Mandir as the venue of the wedding. The exchange of Jaimala between the bride and the groom was performed on a hydraulic elephant with three heads The reception included performances by Lauren Gotleib and Shalmali Kholgade who made the moments special for the couple. The vidhimandap that replicated a heritage dome set against the floral backdrop of the couple’s logo was then used to exchange their vows. “The amount of thought and work we put into making each wedding unique and special, if we were given a chance to do this wedding all over again, it is certain that this way would still be the best way we could’ve done it”- added Sawhney. Though Bhavnesh Sawhney of Wedniksha did not reveal the exact budget of the wedding however Everything Experiential estimates it to be an approximate of 3 Cr-3.5Cr.* *(The Estimations are based upon the current cost of venues, elements of the design and the performance fee of artists)
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The simple mention of the term ‘weddings’ itself alarms money bells for the event planning industry in India. With the recent estimates announcing weddings in the country to be a 100,000 crore industry, speculations are ripe on where is the industry heading and what will it be like in the future? To answer the same question, ‘’Weddings: 2020- The scenario of wedding industry 5 years down the line’’ was the subject of an insightful panel discussion at the fourth edition of the Wedding Fraternity Meet organized by FNP weddings at The Ritz, Gurgaon. On the panel were Prince Lakshya Raj Singh Mewar, Executive Director HRH Group of Hotels, Aditya Motwane, Founder and Director, Motwane Entertainment & Weddings, Seema Pande, Corporate Director, Emaar Hospitality Group, Nupur Puri, Editor Harper’s Bazaar Bride, Vikas Gutgutia, Founder and MD, Ferns N Petals, Navin Ansal, Business Head, Casa Paradox, Rasleen Ansal, Creative Head, Casa Paradox, Neelam Pratap Rudy and fashion designer, Sanjana John. The session was moderated by Swati Pandya Sood, Director, Ferns N Petals and Samit Garg, Founder and Director, E-Factor Entertainment. The panel discussion started by outlining and establishing why the sacred knot of nuptials is rather referred to as the ‘Big Fat Indian Wedding?’ Navin Ansal responded to the question by saying, “There are around 1 crore weddings organized in India each year and thus the term fat is symbolic to the largeness and grandness of the weddings organized.” Voicing his opinion on the subject Prince Lakshya said, “Weddings today are a larger than life affair and hence people spend enormously on the same. They are called fat because there is fat money involved in the execution of weddings.” Aditya Motwane added to the same by stating that weddings are the showcase of the power of wealth and hence the tag of it being considered ‘fat’ is appropriate. When asked upon by the moderators what is lacking in the wedding industry today? Navin Ansal replied by saying, “I have personally witnessed a lot of weddings in the country and while some of them are classy, some of them need a lot of style and finesse in their interior decor to begin with.” Neelam Pratap Rudy responded to the same question by saying, “Weddings is without a doubt a very booming industry however in my opinion what needs to be corrected is that how there has emerged a disconnect between the concept of weddings and celebrations.” Citing from her own experiences she said, “At times I attend about 8-9 weddings on a single day and there are times when it becomes rather challenging to find the hosts of the weddings.” So what are the changes one can expect in the Indian wedding industry by 2020? Answering the question Aditya Motwane says, “In terms of destination weddings I feel we are going to further explore locations like Bahamas and the Caribbean. With that being said, the number of guests on destination weddings are going to decrease from 700-800 today to 350-400 in the future.” Taking his stance on the subject Vikas Gutgutia said, “We have been fiddling with the traditions for our own convenience for now which is the main reason for divorces today. However in the future I feel we will have to restore the faith of the youth in the very concept of weddings.” Sanjana John reacted to the question by saying, “I hope that some sort of a charitable angle is also added to these grand celebrations. There is a lot of food and other essentials that end up unused at such large events which I feel could be put to a better use in the future.” Adding to the point, Navin Ansal said, ‘’I feel weddings in the future will still be larger than life however people are becoming more traditional with each passing day and hence a sense of cohesiveness can be expected from weddings in the future.” Seema Pande too agreed to the point as she said, “Yes, Indians are becoming more global however the traditions will always stay the same and in fact the youth today will connect more with it in the future.”
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