How the pandemic is changing India’s wedding business
INDIAN NUPTIALS can be garish affairs. The groom often rides to the venue on a horse, or a Royal Enfield motorcycle. Portable DJ sets, fired up by car batteries, blare out Bollywood hits. Traffic on busy streets is routinely blocked to accommodate wedding processions. Matrimony in India is also big business. KPMG, a consultancy, estimates the wedding industry’s revenues at roughly $50bn. Before the pandemic these were growing by 25% a year.
Listen to this story
Your browser does not support the <audio> element.
Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android.
As elsewhere, covid-19 has forced many Indian couples to postpone tying the knot. It may also have changed the way they go about it. With big weddings on hold because of their superspreader potential, many informal caterers, coconut-water sellers, ice-cream shops, wedding-card printers and flower vendors are struggling as weddings are put off. Online services, by contrast, are…
