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| Home > Features > Recent Marriage Trends
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| | Recent Marriage Trends
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Indian weddings are no longer unplanned, mismanaged affairs with the entire clan chipping in and running helter-skelter to get things organised. Weddings are now professionally managed, right down to the flowers that need to be arranged to the food that needs to be served. The Indian wedding market has grown fourfold corresponding to the purchasing power of the to-be-wed couples.
Professional event managers have stepped in to ensure an `all fun and no sweat affair` in weddings. Each event manager uses his or her creative abilities to plan out a dream wedding in keeping with the philosophy of each family to have a `different` kind of wedding. So, one day, you step into a wedding that is taking place in a Rajput Haveli and the next day, you find yourself on some exotic island, watching a couple tie the knot under a canopy of stars. Wow! Indian weddings have come a long way from the traditional, bedecked with flowers wedding halls.
While the mehandi could be held in an old British villa, the wedding could be held inside a renovated palace, and the wedding reception in the banquet hall of a luxurious hotel. Families are getting more adventurous and their demands are being happily met by hotels vying with each other to provide the best kind of ambience and backdrop for these well-orchestrated events. The adventurous moods of couples tying the knot seem to have rung happy notes for hotels. Receptions in five-stars considered as a status symbol once upon a time are routine with even the middle and upper middle-class having joined the bandwagon in splurging on weddings and opting for theme weddings.
With more and more women getting independent socially as well as financially the society is getting more and more modern in the outlook towards the divine union of marriage. Though it does not have a direct effect on the marriage functions and celebrations it sure shows the effect from the point of view of daughters getting more freedom in choice of life her life partner. The eligible age considered for getting married getting higher in case of women as well as men due to their career choices and educational preferences are getting common. The social evils like dowry, child marriages are observed to be getting diminishing slowly from the society. More and more mixed marriages taking place in cities and also villages are showing some prominent changes in the whole of the trends getting set. With modern ways of communications getting introduced newer ways crept in for inviting as well as introducing matching alliances for eligible individuals. Educated people started trusting more and more on the communication channels through prints found a new avenue in news papers and matrimonial advertisements through new paper were initiated. Eligible individuals started putting their own advertisements or their parents advertised for inviting alliance through news papers. Though it was the boy`s family more often and more openly advertising for inviting alliances, it was also the girl`s families who were getting bolder and modern to contact the print channel for a matrimonial match. With nuclear families getting more common, it was the man power as well as time was a concern when it came to celebrating any event or festival and marriage planners got an entry to have all the functions taken over from the bride and the groom`s families to perform the marriage functions. These wedding planners took over from suggesting alliances to fixing a venue and menu for the wedding. More recently event management companies were more creative in suggesting ways of enjoying these functions. A trend like inviting an orchestra with well known artists was introduced. Marriages among rich families and celebrities got more glamour than rituals and craze of having a unique venue or theme for the wedding functions crept in. Wedding venues like airplanes, boats, parachutes or submarines were looked upon as fads and crazy ideas to have marriages made unique and unforgettable.
Some time ago, gatherings of eligible men and women were introduced which also has seen success. To start with these functions were more general with recently them getting more focused towards, communities and castes to have a better results and it is proved that these gatherings sure prove successful and are looked upon as a modern `swayamwaras`.
With more than just print media, television getting popular, it was also tried for the diving union. Marriage related shows in national as well as regional channels have proved successful, though they did not run for a very long time.
Finally, the World Wide Web supporting for tying the divine knot is getting popular day by day. With careers taking the boys and girls away from their countries, internet is proved a boon to have all type of communications by making it easy to reach out to each other. Regular marriage bureaus spurring up to have their websites for just information then got into creating special online matrimonial features by actually displaying the information of the eligible individuals intending to marry. Not only specialized matrimonial sites but also certain community or language based sites added features on their websites by offering to introduce the eligible individuals by offering a chance to exchange information, emails. These sites though have their own evil sides showing up with evil minded individuals have been proved successful with more and more features like putting photographs and detailed bio data online. Certain sites offer a free membership and few offer their services with a charging some fees, these sites are user friendly and so are getting popular. These are the `cyber marriages` in Indian scenario. However, we see a lot of India based dating sites getting introduced and used by the younger people. These dating sites do end up having a marriage proposal coming along and are looked upon to have used more popularly for marriage alliances than just dating. No one would have ever dreamt a couple of years ago that technology would change our lives at an astonishing pace. In India where dating was a forbidden word a few years back, we have seen the internet playing a big role in bringing singles together. Many happy marriages take place either through online dating or horoscope matching by parents going to various thriving matrimony sites and registering their details.One could say that this online activity in fixing up marriages has gone from marginal to mainstream almost overnight.
These modern trends creep into the Indian marriage scene; they are getting customized automatically to match the traditional Indian culture and in return offering some trendy changes in the Indian culture and celebrations. Although, the current mantra in Indian weddings is innovation and variety, people are still traditional enough to hang on to their Indian roots. Hence, we still see traditional sweets like hot Gulab jamuns, steaming Jalebis and delicious Basundi compete for attention in Indian wedding banquets.
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