The Cult of Big Weddings

No one is a stranger to the big fat Indian weddings – the pomp, glam, and glitter. Beneath the superficial enormity, when one dives deep in, the sociological threads emerge into patterns of reference group behaviour.

The buzz around the grand scale of celebrity weddings is known to every corner of the world, credits to social media. These big weddings are not just personal events of the upper classes, but also serve as an inspiration for the middle and lower classes. It becomes an aspirational group, the one towards which individuals look up to. This leads to a mimicking of behaviour and rituals, with anything original hardly left.

All marriages now pretty much look the same. Why? Weddings became an economic affair. There is a price for everything. It’s not anymore about the bride or the groom. It’s about how much is spent, how did the food taste, how many varieties did we serve, what exotic flowers did we use in decoration, and the list goes on. There is hardly any cultural uniqueness left in the wedding. Every bride looks the same with tens of thousands worth of makeup. Everybody must have a sangeet, though it makes them heavily uncomfortable doing the stoic choreographed dances. The pre-wedding video must be produced in 4K cinematic quality. The events must go on for days making it an expensive affair to choose costumes and jewellery at exorbitant prices. It must be noted that this behaviour does work in favour of individuals who can make a class shift, up the ladder. But what about the dysfunctional aspect of this mimicking?

The middle class often plunges into debt with big fat weddings. It becomes a status symbol and builds a false narrative on the essentiality of a big wedding. Some bridal lehengas cost more than the entire lifetime savings of families. Majority of the time, the burden of the cost of a wedding falls entirely on the bride’s family, leading to a disproportionate debt. Even if the bride and groom share their expense, these big weddings cost a lot. Regressive rituals that make no sense creep into ceremonies taking us backward in civilisation. Elaborate wedding albums take a huge amount of time that couples even get divorced by the time these albums are delivered. The ones who get married last in their friend or family group are dead meat. Cause they have to include everything people have done in the previous weddings. It’s more like a competition. By this mimicking of behaviour, individuals become marginal failing to enter their aspirational group, while simultaneously becoming pariah in their own group.

In the whole fiasco, the love between the bride and groom is hardly seen. Marriage once was a socially acknowledged sexual union of two individuals. It has now transformed into a show of status, and a product of consumerism. This behaviour is not just limited to India but is seen across the world. But it is more evident in the Indian sub-continent owing to the scale of the weddings.

Now there’s nothing wrong with wanting a big fat Indian wedding. But do we really want one? Or are we blindly conditioned by the society into wanting one? Are we just championing the status quo? Is it a crime to question the meaningless rituals in contemporary times? Wedding is a beautiful union of two souls who decide to stay with each other through thick and thin. It can be done with a simple exchange of vows or a pompous celebration. The meaning doesn’t change. There is no right way and a wrong way of getting married. But the sad reality of today stares at our faces. Temple weddings are looked down upon. Registrar marriages are exclusively reserved for elopement. Small-scale weddings are equated with being miser and broke.

If you find yourselves in the shoes of a bride or a groom, ask yourself, what is a wedding? If you are clear it is a show of status, cool. Go ahead, break the bank, throw the money, mimic the reference group behaviour, and check off everything that can be on a list. If you don’t know what a wedding is, maybe pause and think.