Want to build your career as a wedding planner
Indian weddings are all about traditions and heritage. No matter how “modern” one might be, tradition remains the essence of every Indian wedding. Having said that, there is no denying that there are many international trends that have had a big influence on Indian weddings. Westernization has hugely affected the way Indian weddings are planned and carried out. The young couples love tradition but with a dash of modernity! More and more couples want a global kind of wedding, that becomes an event to remember not just for them, but for everyone who attends it.
Thanks to the influence of social media, the youth is hugely exposed to the lives of celebrities. The destination weddings of Virushka and the very recent Deepveer, have given wedding goals to many. The marriage ceremony has become an extravagant off-shore holiday. Young brides wish to have a fairytale wedding and that has brought a huge rise in the demand for wedding planners, elegant caterers, trousseau designers, stylists, banquet organizers, etc. We have listed the biggest International trends that have taken the Indian wedding industry by a storm.
Exotic Wedding Destinations:
The travelling enthusiast young Indian would love to make their day all the more special, and if budget is an issue, an international destination wedding can be easily replaced with exotic Indian wedding destinations like Goa, Kerala and Rajasthan. The serene and classy environment adds wanderlust for a fairy tale set-up. Just like most international weddings, Indian weddings are no longer considered to be a herculean task (thanks to all the help from wedding planners), but rather a time when friends and family get together to have lots of fun.
2. The Rise of Bridesmaids and Groomsmen:
Talking about the presence of friends and family at the wedding, the international trend of having bridesmaids and groomsmen has made an entry in our wedding scenario as well.
3. Traditional Wedding Colours Are Out:
There has also been a major shift in the bride’s outfit. The Indian bride is now seen in colours apart from the traditional red and shades of green. Yellow and even white are now gaining popularity. Different styles of hair-dos and makeup have also made way. The wedding guests are also seen following different colour schemes for different wedding ceremonies, from an all yellow in the “Haldi Function”, to an all-white tempo for the “Sangeet”. The sangeet pictures and videos of Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor awed everyone, with every guest clad in shades of white. More and more people are opting for pastel and sorbet shades, especially for summer weddings.
4. The Veil Trend:
Indian brides are taking inspiration from their western counterparts and incorporating beautiful veils into their wedding trousseau. This trend was particularly well received by Bollywood celebs like Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra who included the very chic Catholic veil into their wedding trousseau.
5. Subtle Bridal Makeup:
Bridal makeup is one of the most basic components that bring a wedding look together. There is nothing better than a simple and fresh make-up look that will make you look radiant. While Indian bridal makeup has always been known for its extravagance, the western trend of a subtler and simpler look has ebbed its way into our weddings. For instance, Priyanka Chopra Jonas settled on the ‘less is more’ approach for her recent wedding ceremony. From a summer wedding on a seashore to a beautiful ceremony in a temple or another private location, this is one of the most recent International wedding trends that has made its way into Indian weddings and will remain popular.
6. Curated Guest List:
Unlike before, when long-forgotten friends and relatives were also invited to weddings, just like international weddings, the guest-list of an Indian wedding is now planned more articulately. This also makes it easier to make each guest feel more special and truly a part of the big day. Parting gifts with their names on, specific photo-shoots, allotted tables at ceremonies etc. are ways to make everyone feel extra special.
7. Bridal Entrance:
Before, the grand entrance was reserved only for men in Indian weddings. However, Indian brides are taking inspiration from their Western counterparts and are beginning to take the lead with regards to their bridal entries on their big day. Full of magnificence and attitude, brides currently enter on an assortment of vehicles, for example, bikes and Palanquins with the most well known by far an entrance to their fave ‘tune’ and their own rendition of their Naomi Campbell catwalk swagger, Brides are done playing the shy bride and are quite glad to flaunt their style and their personality.
8. Blending Of Cultures:
With a rise in inter-caste and even inter-country marriages, many couples are experimenting with a fusion of eastern and western culture. It is not just an acknowledgement to their heritage, but it is their way of blending the east and west styles. Couples from various cultural backgrounds decide to celebrate both their cultures in independent ceremonies or combine them with various ceremonies from each. Deepika and Ranveer, and Priyanka and Nick both had two wedding functions to include and offer respect to and celebrate their cultural differences. This has also given rise to another important aspect of the spectacle of the wedding which is an exemplified and lavish layout of food. From Chinese to Lebanese, Italian to Japanese, Mexican to Thai, along with the exotic Indian cuisines are all reaching the modest palate of the guests.
9. Tossing Of The Bouquet:
The tossing of the bouquet is a tradition that most single ladies at a wedding anticipate. This fun and popular tradition of the Western culture has been adopted by young Indian brides too. The bride (frequently blindfolded) throws her bouquet to the single woman and it is said that the young lady that gets the bouquet will get hitched next. An Indian bride tossing her colourful bouquet is such a great photo opportunity as well!
10. The Gift Registry:
How frequently have we gotten gifts we truly didn’t need or we already have? The gift registry (exceptionally well-known custom in weddings internationally), is an incredible method to abstain from being gifted the same thing multiple times. The couple chooses their wish list of items from a store, shares it with their guests and in this manner guarantees, they get precisely what they need!
This Indo-western fusion of the wedding trends is nothing less than an opulent celebration and has further added more glitter and sophistication to the Indian wedding industry. There is no doubt that international trends have started showing up in Indian weddings, and they are here to stay!
Udaipur also known as City of lakes is in limelight since centuries because of its exquisite nature of diverse cultures and experiences together. The city has always been adored by many and will always be in the minds of exotic destination lovers. The place is considered as the romantic wedding destination where you can carry on the wedding rituals and ceremonies.
The Royal Mansions in the city serves as the one of the best and most sought after wedding location. The hotel’s intricate layout makes the interiors breathtaking and outdoor offer a stunning view of the magnificent lake and lush gardens. Ranbanka Palace is home to many Indian weddings for centuries. The palace is famous for it’s exquisiteness such as luxurious rooms and contemporary architecture. Heritage palaces and forts add to the glory of the city in conducting royal weddings. The royal treatment given to the guests make it perfect place for many to opt for their memorable event.
Umaid Bhavan, Indana Palace set in the magnificent city of Jodhpur are well-known wedding destinations. These palaces are beautifully designed and has multiple banquet halls which are glorious in all its offerings. The hall and huge lawn area are suitable to host a grand wedding function. The ambiance at Indana is beautiful fusion of different worlds coming together and the inner courtyard is best for wedding ceremonies. Thus, a perfect Indian wedding can be experienced in this magnificent city.
A wedding in Rajasthan will give you beautiful memories that you will cherish forever. What more you can ask for when you can take the wedding vows with your loved ones at beautiful locations. So, add more spice to your wonderful event by planning your wedding at exotic palaces, hotels and forts but more importantly choose your planner carefully because they can turn your wedding around. 
Weddings are definitely a costly affair. And to keep a track of the flow of money, it is important to maintain a budget that can guide us about our expense.
Last minute expenses and sudden unplanned issues are unavoidable so it is also important to keep a chunk out of our budget for that cause. In fact, a better way would be to think beforehand about these ‘pop-up wish list’ items in the beginning and add them so that you are not caught off-guard suddenly.
At last, learn to balance on the expenses. For example, if you have splurged on food, then you might want to cut on expenditure on flowers, decoration etc.
The most important trait of an efficient event manager is the workability of his timeline. So, to make sure that you have ample amount of time to carry out every order and preparation, make sure that you have a precise timeline in your hand that ends at least two weeks prior to the wedding. After all, you need time to revamp yourself for the event too!
The average person generally spends between 2 to 20 million rupees on a wedding that might be a three or five-day long event. It is also estimated that about 10 million weddings take place in India annually. No doubt the Indian Wedding Industry is now a multi-billion-rupee industry. Expenditure on designer clothes, jewelry, catering, invites, photography and the décor adds up to humongous amounts. It might come as a big surprise, but it is during the wedding season that the amount of gold bought reaches a mammoth 450 tones. Himanshu Kapsime, an Engineer from IIT Delhi, quit his job in the US and started an online wedding portal called shaadisaga.com a few years back. Himanshu says, “This is a recession-proof industry”.
A lavish wedding makes the bride, groom and both families feel like celebrities for a day or two. By treating themselves to an extravagant and splendid party in celebration of their children’s wedding, the whole family feels nothing less than a celebrity for a day or throughout the wedding ceremonies. It feels as if the bride and the groom are the stars and the social media is their display channel. What’s all the more a welcome change is that it’s not just the super-rich that can flaunt a big-fancy wedding, the upper-middle-class Indians are not behind in outsourcing the wedding.
The trends of the elite are filtered down to the common public who are deeply inspired by social media, news channels and magazines. The younger generation is definite to not only adopt and adapt but also mirror and modify. Shweta Acharya of Baraati Inc, has handled over 15 weddings which include 4 destination weddings, one of which was organized in Florence. She says, “A planner makes a wedding come alive. He or she is the chef of a wedding. We have to make sure that the fairytale wedding is delivered with flair so that the client is stress-free”. In most Indian families, saving for the wedding starts very early in life. Now, it’s not just the parents who spend at the wedding, the boy and girl to-be-married can finance a big part of their own wedding too. This extra money makes spending easier and the standard of wedding rises higher and higher.
Youth of today also like to be personally involved in their weddings, not in the working but the planning. As they may not have much of an idea about the ceremonies, the rituals and about pooling the resources together but they do like to add their personal touch in every aspect of the wedding. From the invitation cards to the gift for the guests, from the decor to the menu, they want everything to be in line with their own taste.
What Shweta has pointed out is another big reason for the paradigm shift from the traditional Indian wedding to planned weddings, many people consider organizing a wedding to be quite hectic business. The couple as well as the immediate family have to be involved in the planning while it is only the guests that get to enjoy. The whole event becomes an obligation to keep others entertained. The present generation views the wedding as a holiday and a means to get together with friends and family and make some happy memories. And they do not mind adding 10-20% more to their budget if they can get the peaceful and hassle-free services from the wedding planner. This is a big reason why wedding planners are so much in demand.
Destination Weddings are the newest trend that seems to be staying on for long. With many celebrities going to exotic locations for their wedding, the young couples to-be-married-soon have a new wish-list. More and more couples wish to have a personal and meaningful ceremony in a far-off location, where they can spend some quality with their friends and family.
The younger generation often finds the wedding ceremonies to be replete with tradition. Most of them want high-tech weddings but with a dash of tradition. Weddings still are a once-in-a-lifetime affair, and nobody wants anything to go wrong. That’s the season of hiring specialized services like the photographers, decorators, videographers, stylists, designers and caterers. Though it is still the head of the family who is the ‘chief-organizer’, but then what’s the fun not having some highly charged emotional drama at a wedding. It is these high-pressure moments that make a great laugh years later. After all, it’s all about having a good time! 
The importunacy of a dramatic decor never goes out of trend! Which has become the key highlight of all the wedding ceremonies? The setting needs to be proper right from staging, lighting, flowers, chairs, and tables, to the centerpieces and curtains. The details can get intricate, but the outcome is worth it. Many Bollywood celebrities hire wedding designers to give their venue a complete makeover that suits the swaggy weddings.
Weddings are not only about the perfect locations. For the bride to be, there’s nothing more important than the wedding trousseau, which also includes the wedding dress. Picking one or at times more than one trousseau designer can make all the difference. For example, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja wore outfits from three designers in her wedding ceremonies – Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla, Anuradha Vakil, and Anamika Khanna.
Your jewelry should be unique and one of its kind. When it comes to jewelry what you wear is as important as how you wear it. Its the job of the jewelry designer to guide you to pick the best piece of jewelry that goes perfectly with an outfit. Depending on your style, your comfort level and of course your outfits, the designer can create heavy, light, indo-western, ethnic, contemporary jewelry items whatever suits your body type.
Finding the right wedding planner is as important as finding the right partner as the weddings are getting way more creative and demanding. Food, as they say, is the way to the happy stomach is undoubted can never be avoided. There is no such thing as ‘ordinary’ at a Celebrity wedding. Even the most traditional food is supposed to make a style statement. The presentation of the food that is to be laid out is at times more important than the ingredients. The ‘menu’ is one of the most time and effort consuming aspect of a wedding. Though traditional dishes are a part of the cuisine, many couples believe in going ‘international’.
Giving the “royal-touch” at a wedding is one of the most important aspects of a celebrity wedding. This is probably the most important way to make your wedding a memorable one, not just for yourself but for everyone who attends it. You need to keep it personal. From your guest list to the decor, from the menu to the venue, it should reflect your taste and style. There isn’t anything wrong if you are taking some ideas or in other words ‘inspiration’ from a celebrity wedding, but remember it is after all “Your Wedding”!
So, go ahead, plan your wedding in the grandest way possible! Even if you are not a huge celebrity, your wedding will surely be the talk of the town, and you never know, you might become as famous as a celebrity! 
Wedding business facilitates the smooth entry of startups. This recession-free aspect of the wedding industry has lured many start-ups to step up. Wedding industry have something for everyone. Just about anyone can start with anything in the wedding industry. From a makeup artist to a hair stylist, from a dress designer to a jewelry designer, from a caterer to a florist, there is always that “something” you can always contribute in one way or the other. Almost everyone wishes to have a remarkable wedding which is memorable and different in its own way, there is an increasing scope for creativity and newness in the flourishing wedding industry.
Seeing the rising scope and the easy finance option. It has undoubtedly marking a passionate impression as the prospective options for many, as of now there aren’t many legal formalities that are required to be fulfilled by a wedding planner as the wedding industry is still on its initial stage. It is undoubtedly the well-paying job too, it depends on the wedding planner if he wishes to have a fixed fee or charges a commission on the basis of the budget of the wedding. Many event planners and managers are now focusing more attention on planning weddings only.
Wedding are the memorable event and everyone thrives to make it a fun event for everyone There is in a demand of special and unique weddings. With almost every one striving to make the wedding like “never before “- kind of a wedding, the trend seems to be staying for every ling time. Weddings include lot of things right from Pre-wedding shoots, honeymoon destinations, bachelor trips, theme weddings which needs to be taken care off. Wedding planners are constantly told to brainstorm to come up with something new and afresh every time.
The flourishing trend of the “Destination Weddings” is making the business of wedding planning more interesting and flourishing thereby opening plethora of opportunities for people to step up and pursue it as career. The recent Virat Kohli- Anushka Sharma wedding was nothing less than the dream wedding by many young couples to be. Weddings are no longer a stressful event that a family has to organize, rather it is becoming more of a holiday not just for the soon-to-be-married couple, but the families and friends too. People choose the wedding dates on long weekends so that they all can get together and make it an opportunity for a family reunion. Depending on one’s budget the destination is chosen and all the ceremonies are planned there accordingly.
Indian wedding looks the most colorful which become the attractive destination for foreigners wishing to have a desi touch in their weddings. Not only Indians are going to foreign countries for a destination wedding, but many foreigners are also choosing India to be their wedding destination. Goa with its beaches and Rajasthan for its royal palaces, are considered to be the best spots. Many wedding planners collaborate with five-star hotels and organize such weddings. The rituals and traditions practiced by the Indians are found to be very appealing to the foreigners who therefore plan to do the same.
Indian Weddings are a resplendent affair. Be it a grand-destination wedding or a humble wedding organized in the Society Park, each wedding holds a special importance. The opulence and merriment attached to a wedding are spreading their wings wide and seem to be showering prosperity all around the Indian Wedding Industry. 
Once you have gained the required theoretical exposure, it’s time to jump into the practical world. Gaining first-hand experience as a wedding planner helps you to understand the ins and outs of the humongous wedding industry.
Getting yourself an internship or volunteering will help you in your career to becoming a wedding planner, as this will give you the chance to network with other industry professionals. The benefits of internships are that you work with established planners – which paves your way to secure a full-time job with them!
Marketing your services is very crucial if you want to excel in the industry of wedding planning, and is crucial to get your business off the ground. Word of mouth will help you to embark on this new career path quickly! Apart from that, social media can definitely be of huge help in reaching out to the possible clients.
It’s advisable to not rush into with an overflowing wedding calendar! Take your own time to pace up. When you will start as a planner, you’ll still be a naïve student where all the experiences will be a helping teacher. Take projects one at a time but execute the same with utmost perfection.
Being a wedding planner, you deliberately need to be able to cope up in stressful situations. If you’re able to handle the stress, part of the battle is already won. You will also need exceptional communication skills – both written and verbal – to be perfect on the job. You must be an “extroverted EXTROVERT” to become a successful wedding planner. You need to convey your ideas to complete strangers with utmost clarity.
Every wedding is like another small show which needs perfect timing and management of every aspect right from budgets and vendors to contracts and subcontracts. Develop a penchant to think “outside the box”. Do things differently and stand out from the crowd if you want to be recognized as a great wedding planning professional!
In the industry of wedding planning, experience is the golden key. Customer loyalty will go a major way in a business segment like wedding planning as thriving in this industry heavily depends on word-of-mouth. This will help you to earn excellent references.
If you really wish to dive into the career of wedding planner, there are zillions of opportunities waiting for you. You need to be proactive in finding opportunities and take an initiative to go out and grab them.
Last bit of advice
Learn everything that you see around and especially from mistakes made by others, and then move on to learning something fresh with a new sense of commitment. Your BEST chance to break into the wedding planning arena is to completely “WOW” everyone at your first wedding with your skills.