The demand for wedding planners is on the rise, and there is a dearth of major players in this industry
Marriages are made in heaven but organized on earth. And when it comes to Indian marriages, the arrangements are even more elaborate.
Weddings in India represent the most diverse confluence of culture, rooted deeply in regional traditions and customs. As various ceremonies take place before and after the big day, it becomes cumbersome to manage everything from food to decoration while making the guests feel comfortable.
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Marriages, particularly in north India, are even more elaborate and detail oriented. No wonder then, both sides are left exasperated during the entire ceremony, while doing everything they can to make the event a success. This paves way for a wedding planner to enter the scene and play the role of a professional event manager.
Take the case of Jai Raj Gupta, CEO, Shaadionline. This IIM graduate with a technology background sensed the big opportunity in this space and made foray into the business in the year 2000. “People spend a lot of money on their weddings but they don’t have the time. So we felt that why not provide the service which they deserve,” says Gupta. Thus, Gupta, along with two others, started Shaadionline initially as a portal. Later, they grew it into brick and mortar business.
The Market
The Indian wedding market is just getting bigger. It includes everything from clothes to jewellery to decoration and catering. “The size of the Indian wedding market is estimated at anywhere between Rs 55,000 crore and Rs 60,000 crore. The market is growing at about 15%,” says Pavas Bhatia, Associate Director, KSA Technopak.
As income levels for both service and business class touch new highs every year, coupled with major time constraints, the market for wedding planners is set to boom. According to Bhatia, the wedding planning industry would grow at 23-30%. “The size of the wedding planning market could be about 2.5-5% of the wedding market,” says Gupta.
“The industry is primarily driven by increasing affluence, and aspirations among consumers. Also the desire for unique, elaborate-well-arranged events without hassles coupled with the capability to pay for wedding planners, is driving the market northwards,” Bhatia says. Some estimates put the size of the wedding planning industry at $10 billion.
“Say if there are 20,000 weddings on a given day, then only 2,000 weddings are relevant to a wedding planner.
Out of these 2,000, only about 10% are planned by wedding planners,” says Gupta.
The Business
Despite the fact that wedding is a big family affair, and most people prefer to keep it that way, things are slowly beginning to change. Today’s fast and materialistic life leaves little time for working out the details of an elaborate wedding. This makes the business click.
The wedding planning business is like an umbrella of many other businesses such as catering, travel and tour and decoration. Agrees well know wedding designer Viraf Pocha. “Three major expenses include logistics, catering and decoration,” he says. Getting people flown in to the venue, incurs the largest cost. This is true more in the case of destination weddings, for which Goa, Rajasthan, Malaysia and Thailand are the favourites. The expense rises even further in the case of multi-location weddings.
When it comes to decoration, it is the multi-theme weddings that take the cake. Usually they are a mix of ethnic or contemporary or international theme.
Each project works in three stages. These include planning, coordination and implementation. Planning involves a lot of paperwork, jotting down the layout to the minutest detail. In some cases, says Gupta, this may run into 400 pages. The next stage is coordination. This involves discussing the project with the client, and including their feedback and inputs. This is where trust and understanding comes into play.
Implementation is the toughest part. It requires being at venue and ensuing that all arrangements are up to the mark.
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| “Say if there are 20,000 weddings on a given day, then only 2,000 weddings are relevant to a wedding planner. Out of these 2,000, only about 10% are planned by wedding planners.” — jai raj gupta, CEO, Shaadionline |
What about celebrity weddings? For them, “weddings are designed to make a statement,” says Pocha. Celebrities also look for sponsors for their weddings, which could be a media organization that bags exclusive rights of the event.
“The best part of this industry is that it is not affected by inflation and deflation. No matter what the situation, everyone has to marry. Neither will the number of weddings change nor will the expenditure change,” say Gupta.
But are customers happy about taking the services of wedding planners? This is what Adesh Gupta, MD, Liberty Shoes had to say. He got the wedding of his daugthter organized through shaadionline in July this year. “It was a wonderful experience and the wedding planners made a big difference to the wedding. They rid us of the hassle of working with vendors and, of course, introduced new ideas and made the whole experience pleasant,” he says. The wedding was attended by 3,000 guests.
The Challenges
The biggest challenge is to fight the perception that getting the wedding organized through a wedding planner costs the earth, although celebrity weddings cost a lot.
This is also because of the dearth of players in the market. “There are not too many players in the market. I’ll be very happy if I go to a client and he tells me that he knows what wedding planning is and how could I offer services better that the other players,” says Gupta.
Creating a good relationship with the client can help you go a long way. Some big corporate families prefer to stay with the same planner throughout because the wedding planner would know everyone in the family. Such wedding planners take the role of a family friend.
“Wedding planners in the US and India meet completely different needs,” says Pocha.
Like in any other business, getting the right people on board is not easy. As there are no schools to teach the tricks of the trade, most people learn on the job. It may even take a year to become a good wedding planner.
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