The big, fat Indian wedding is known throughout the world for its grandeur. The kind of grandeur that gets downright sickening after a while. In the past few years, Indian weddings have become bigger than ever. The wedding industry is booming, and the kind of money that people spend on weddings is truly mind boggling. If you have it, flaunt it, right?
However, there are some things that we wish would change in the big, fat Indian wedding. In any other scenario, these things would be considered really strange. But in an Indian wedding, these things are completely normal.
1. Using human beings as showpieces
Attend a few huge weddings in Delhi and you’ll see this absurdity. A lot of people now hire young Caucasian women, employed by event companies, to act as tables, bars, and as showpieces at the entrance. Don’t be surprised if you find a young girl with a round table attached to her. This is supposed to be either a mobile snacks station or bar. You’ll also see these aspiring models welcoming guests or acting as valets. We all know why they’re there. The Indian obsession with fair skin isn’t going away anytime soon, and the presence of Caucasian women is supposed to take your party to the highest level.
No one minds a normal table and a normal bar, nailed to the ground, not attached to a person. Your wedding won’t be considered any less if you don’t hire people to be furniture.
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2. Making the bride and groom feel like props
Speaking of humans as furniture, it’s time to do away with the forced stage too. A wedding is supposed to be a happy time, not a time of torture for the bride and groom. Yes, we know you want your picture with them as proof that you attended the wedding. But to relegate two people to a stage just because they dared to have a wedding party is really unnecessary. Imagine smiling for four hours straight, posing with people you don’t know, hungry, thirsty, and aching to just go home. In the middle of all this, you see your cousins and friends having the times of their lives. At your expense. That’s bound to feel awful.
3. Brand new cars for the grooms who wanted ‘no dowry’
Dowry has been illegal in India for a long, long time. However, many families still buy “gifts” for the groom and his family. These gifts can range from clothes to cars. Even in 2019, it’s not unusual to see a brand new car parked outside the wedding venue. This is passed off as a gift for the bride. Unfortunately, no matter how woke people claim to be, this is and will remain the norm at the big, fat Indian wedding.
4. Late baraats
This is seriously disrespectful towards the bride and her family. Would you go three or four hours late to a party or a meeting? No, right? Then why do that at your wedding? Baraats are a lot of fun. But we wish baraatis would realise that there are a lot of people waiting for them while they dance for hours.
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5. Wasting copious amounts of food
No one needs 10 different dals and 20 kinds of rotis to have a good time. And your wedding isn’t going to be any less of a success without 100 appetisers. No one needs to eat that much. We need to stop displaying wealth with food and wasting most of it. There are much better ways to spend that money.
6. People who use weddings as an excuse to get drunk
Weddings are fun with a bar. We know that. But if a guest’s sole intention is to get drunk at your wedding, you would be better off without their esteemed presence. They are not there to share in your joy or support you. They’re only there for the free alcohol. This brings us to the next thing we wish would stop at Indian weddings.
7. The need to invite 500 strangers
Cousins are fun. Friends are fun. All extended family members can be fun too. But the groom’s second cousin’s in-laws are not required to be a part of the wedding. The bride and groom have enough to deal with, and now they have to smile and pose with complete strangers whom they will never meet again. Inviting fewer people means a more fun wedding where everyone can be themselves without formality. It also means that your expenses decrease significantly with lesser food, lesser alcohol, and a smaller venue.
8. Huge wedding invitations
Wedding invitations have become bigger and grander than ever before. Who can forget the elaborate, morbidly expensive wedding invitation from the Ambani-Piramal wedding? What is a wedding invite though? It’s a way to inform someone about the date, day, place and time of your wedding. After the wedding, that invite has no use. It doesn’t need to be huge and ridiculously expensive.
