by November-February Period Confirms Marriage Industrial Complex Operates Independently of Economic Conditions
Wedding Season: The Economy That Runs on Auspicious Dates
India’s wedding season, which runs approximately from November to February with peaks on dates identified by astrologers as muhurtas — auspicious timings that ensure cosmic alignment for the marital proceedings — is estimated by the Confederation of Indian Industry to generate approximately four point seven lakh crore rupees annually in direct spending on venues, catering, jewellery, clothing, decorations, photography, music, invitations, hospitality, and the broader economy of goods and services that a wedding of between three hundred and fifteen hundred guests requires when conducted at the scale that social expectations have established as the appropriate minimum for a family that has any reputation to maintain and several that have already maintained it sufficiently but are not prepared to host an occasion that could be compared unfavorably to the Sharma family’s wedding in 2022.
‘The invitations went to four hundred people,’ said Delhi resident Priya Kapoor, whose daughter’s wedding is in December. ‘Of the four hundred, we expect three hundred and fifty to attend. Of the three hundred and fifty, perhaps forty are people my daughter knows. The rest are my husband’s office contacts, my family’s extended network, and people we cannot not invite because they invited us to their functions. The function economy operates on reciprocity. You cannot exit without consequence. We have been invited to eleven weddings this season. We will attend eleven weddings this season. We will enjoy three of them.’
The Muhurta Problem
The concentration of weddings on muhurta dates creates a logistical compression that hotel and venue operators describe as ‘the February 9th problem’ after a date that recurs as particularly auspicious in many years and on which multiple weddings in the same city attempt to secure the same venues, the same catering staff, the same photographers, and the same band that plays Bollywood hits until 3 AM in a competition that rewards the families who booked earliest and penalizes those who waited for the astrologer’s confirmation before contacting the venue, which is what the astrologer recommended but which the venue does not wait for.
Indian wedding economy coverage at Times of India. Comedy: NewsThump.
SOURCE: http://prat.UK
