20 guests is way too less, rue wedding planners in Delhi

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How many wedding guests are allowed in Delhi? “20 only, and it’s too less!” say wedding planners, ruing about the cap as per the Covid protocols in the Capital. With most weddings getting postponed for a later date due to this restriction, wedding planners in the city say it’s posing a major loss to their businesses, and one that’s tough to bear now after being on a rocky road since the start of the pandemic.

“Everyone wants dhoom dhaam at the shaadi, and that isn’t possible with a presence of just 20 guests,” says Pawan Sharma, founder, The Wedding Curator, adding, “In a 20 people limited guest list, many can’t even manage to call in their immediate family members. Then the wedding just turns out to be a formality, and mostly those are opting to not back out, who had been postponing their wedding since the whole of last year; with the hope of being able to enjoy their D-Day. They aren’t left with much option at the moment. However, while we bear the loss of a cancellation, there are other expenses as well as when wedding get postponed. All work needs to start afresh, for the new dates that get finalised later. And it’s us who have to bear the office expenses, worker expenses, and I’m not in a good situation to face it all over again.”

Jitesh Khana, co-founder, The Velvet Weddings, seconds the thought, and adds, “50 guests still makes sense, but the present guideline of 20 people is too less!”

Wedding planners say that the number of guests allowed must be decided as per the size of the venue. (Photo: Arvind Yadav/HT; For representational purposes only)
Wedding planners say that the number of guests allowed must be decided as per the size of the venue. (Photo: Arvind Yadav/HT; For representational purposes only)

In an attempt to put forth their view point, a few members of the wedding industry have written to the chief minister, requesting for a meeting to discuss the issue. “We have so many venues, and where the venue size is say 4,000 or 5,000 square feet, how is it possible to have just 20 guests there to maintain social distancing? At least the number of guests can be allowed as per the venue sizes,” Rajeev Jain, managing director, Rashi Entertainment, adding, “We all associated with the wedding industry are completely with the government, and understand why have they have put such restrictions on number of guests. But we feel that weddings are the safest among all the services that have been curbed, and we would like to explain our side to the government that has done so much to protect our city from Covid. We just want that the happiness quotient associated with the weddings should continue… and we assure to take care of everything else.”

On the brink of losing out big projects because of the cap on wedding guests, Reema Khatri from Wed My Way says, “Many people who had planned weddings at this time are stressed out because hotels aren’t returning the money either. We had a lot of international clients and NRIs coming in for weddings, and now they need to quarantine soon. But the families don’t even know ki shaadi hogi bhi ya nahi. If they are getting an RT-PCR done after quarantine, then what’s the issue in involving them to the guest list? We can always seat people in a socially distanced way. And if one has booked a venue for 200 people, then how can they reduce it to 20 suddenly? I feel that an RT PCR must be made mandatory for all guests, along with vaccination certificates, and these should be enough to allow people to participate in weddings that were booked last month or even before that. Otherwise, their money must be compensated.”

Also in favour of approving vaccination certificates as a criteria to increase the guest limit of weddings in Delhi, Sanya Aneja from The 7 Vows, opines, “People who have weddings, did the planning months back, so why stop them now? At least let them do the weddings with more number of people. Okay, may be not 200, but at least not 20 either. Let them call their immediate families. Otherwise, it will get tough for them and us too! Due to such changes, now people are not even ready to pay advance, even for weddings planned in February!”

Some from the industry, have however made peace with the situation. “It’s okay to take a financial hit than to take in our stride the loss of human lives,” says celebrity wedding designer Swati Pandya Sood, adding, “At the moment, I’m stuck overseas as I had a big destination wedding abroad, and now the client from Delhi says their guests are not willing to travel in this scenario. Imagine! I came to build the set and do the logistics since December 22, for this mega wedding. It was a huge hit that we took… but we took it because I always say: Each human life holds most weightage than any amount of ticket size.”

Author tweets @anjuri

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