Virus takes sheen off weddings

Fewer guests turn up; many marriages postponed

There were fewer guests than usual at the various weddings held on Sunday, consequent to the Telangana state government’s ban on public gatherings as a response to the growing local footprint of the global coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The government has allowed weddings scheduled till March 31 to go on, albeit requesting families to cap number of guests at 200. This request, however, seems to have been ignored in most cases.

Families with weddings scheduled during the next couple of weeks said they wouldn’t be able to stop guests from coming. Manoj, whose cousin’s wedding is planned on March 20, said the family has planned a “big fat” function.

“We have sent out hundreds of invites already. We can’t tell our guests to not come. That is simply impossible. Right now, everything is going as planned. We will see what happens,” he said. Manoj added that unless the function hall refused to serve them, wedding would go on as usual.

Meanwhile, the wedding planning industry has gone into a tizzy after the announcement. Multiple wedding and event planners said that several clients had postponed weddings indefinitely. In fact, a few clients had done so even before the announcement.

Chaitanya Kulkarni of Alankaran Weddings said, “since morning, we have received a number of calls asking us to cancel all arrangements.”

Mr Kulkarni said that many function halls were returning booking amounts in full, post cancellation, a practice unheard of in the events industry.

Harinath of Vishwa Events said that he had managed arrangements at a wedding in Alwal on Sunday morning. “Several hundreds attended, but all they spoke about was coronavirus. I think they only came because the government’s announcement came only yesterday night and they were unaware of it. In the next few days, either guest lists will get shorter or the weddings will get cancelled,” he said.

Ameeth, a city-based event management professional and a choreographer, said it was likely that wedding scheduled in next few days would happen as planned, but without any frivolities.

“Services such as sangeeth choreographers and live music orchestra are being cancelled. There will be no ‘extras’ at weddings to reduce number of guests,” he said.