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Words by Varsha Patel<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/07\/syng-PVtSEz-qNhE-unsplash.jpg” alt=”Millennials and heels” title_text=”syng-PVtSEz-qNhE-unsplash” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” min_height=”107px” custom_padding=”||0px|||” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
The Ambani wedding has taken the world by storm in 2024. In what feels like a never-ending celebration, the son of Asia\u2019s richest man, Anant Ambani, married his longtime girlfriend, Radhika Merchant, in a lavish, opulent ceremony in India, reported to have cost an estimated $600 million. As I was scrolling through social media and judging all the outfits with my friends (this was our Met Gala, after all), I had several questions. Why are the Kardashians there? And Boris Johnson? And John Cena, of all people? How much did this thing cost?<\/p>\n
With the wedding party still very much underway (the couple are said to be planning a two-months-long post-wedding celebration in Stoke Park, Berkshire, this summer), the Ambanis\u2019 nuptials were a stark reminder of just how out of hand South Asian weddings can really get. This has reopened a more personal question I\u2019ve been toying with in recent years. Is my dream of a small and intimate Indian wedding totally unfeasible? As a British-Gujarati, it often feels like I don\u2019t really have a choice.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m certainly not from a billionaire family like the Ambanis and my budget will hardly be accommodating guest musical stars or designer bridalwear. If you take every stereotype of an Indian wedding and times it by ten, you still wouldn\u2019t be close to the grandeur of the Ambani festivities. And though the Ambani wedding may be unattainable for the average person, weddings \u2014 particularly Indian weddings \u2014 can quickly escalate into something the couple never even wanted. I\u2019ve seen it happen countless times: the mehndi party can go from a small affair to a booze-fuelled, mega \u2018pre-reception\u2019 and the guest list shoots up because it turns out your grandma forgot an additional trunk of your already overextended family tree. Don\u2019t forget all the other events that make up a typical Indian wedding week: the mandvo, various pujas (prayers), the haldi, mayian \u2014 and these are only the ones I can remember off the top of my head.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy for weddings to spiral out of control, but\u00a0 what\u2019s uncomfortable is the insidious undertone in the lack of choice South Asian couples have in their big day. This is because at its core, the Indian wedding is rarely actually about the bride and groom. While the community is moving on in some aspects, weddings still seem to be about keeping up appearances for South Asian families. Common features are an invite list of quid pro quos as opposed to guests who are really important to the couple and a feeling of \u2018owing\u2019 your family in some bizarre way. This insinuation of a \u2018business transaction\u2019 is hardly very romantic. You can of course spar on details big and small. But on the whole, it\u2019s a fight your parents are likely to win. For example, discussions with my mum on simply my hypothetical wedding get fairly heated \u2014 my guess-timate figure of fifty guests was laughable and unrealistically low \u2014 so I dread the conversation when it comes down to the real thing. If my mum was keen on having a big wedding because she thinks it would be nice for me and my partner, then it would be easier to be amenable.<\/p>\n
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Saheli Dhokia, founder of luxury Asian wedding planning company Saheli Events, is no stranger to those tense family dynamics with clients, but doesn\u2019t necessarily think it stems from a place of malice. While she says the immediate family of clients do tend to \u2018feel pressure to please and host\u2019, it usually comes from \u2018attending many other weddings and wanting to give back\u2019. However, Saheli is noticing a change, with couples increasingly standing their ground. \u2018What we\u2019ve been seeing more of is the couple taking a stronger lead in the decision-making with the guestlist for the main events, and then one event celebration that includes more of the extended friends, family and peers.\u2019 All in all, there\u2019s more of a \u2018good happy balance that makes everyone happy,\u2019 she adds, noting that guests nowadays are much more understanding as to \u2018how hard and expensive it is to plan their big fat Indian wedding.\u2019<\/p>\n
With all these choices and more, my partner and I debate our future wedding at length \u2014 despite not being engaged \u2014 trying to figure out a best-case scenario that straddles the personal, the traditional, the religion and of course the wishes of our families. Sometimes I surprise myself by finding I\u2019m keen for traditional aspects that he may be willing to forgo, for example. It\u2019s already feeling like a challenging balance to strike and there\u2019s a sense of pressure not to let anybody down or disappoint them. This isn’t enough to make me anti-wedding, as I know it\u2019s the marriage that\u2019s more important. But it does make it easier not to be in any sort of rush for a wedding.<\/p>\n
Striving for a more personalised wedding, UK blogger Hema dialled back on what are deemed the \u2018traditional\u2019 aspects of an Indian wedding.\u00a0 \u2018We didn\u2019t have the \u2018big fat Indian wedding\u2019,\u2019 she explains in her three-part video series titled Things I didn\u2019t do for my Indian wedding, showcasing her smaller, intimate wedding with just close friends and families. Changes included not having a separate Indian outfit for her reception, no additional \u2018frills\u2019 like photo booths and musicians, as well as ditching the printed kankotris (wedding invites) in favour of online RSVPs.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s clearly possible to strike a balance between family expectations and what the couple wants \u2014 you just have to be brave enough to do it. I\u2019m coming to terms with the fact that although the wedding doesn\u2019t have to be \u201cbig\u201d, it will probably end up being bigger than I want it to be. A smaller wedding, maintaining only the most crucial traditional and religious aspects, certainly feels like the happy medium.<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, I can put all the time and effort into crafting the dream wedding, but there\u2019s always going to be a guest who finds something not to like anyway, as is the prerogative\u00a0 of Indian families.<\/p>\n
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IMAGE: GETTY<\/p>\n
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All I want is a small Indian wedding, is that just a pipe dream?Words by Varsha PatelThe Ambani wedding has taken the world by storm in 2024. In what feels like a never-ending celebration, the son of Asia\u2019s richest man, Anant Ambani, married his longtime girlfriend, Radhika Merchant, in a lavish, opulent ceremony in India, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3707"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3712,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3707\/revisions\/3712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}