Events expert Vandana Mohan tells us how celebrations will change this festive season

BH: How much of your clientele is for events and how much for weddings?
VM: I’d say that 99 per cent is weddings and the 1 per cent for events is for some of the old clients who come to us, or some of the international brands.

BH: In the two decades since you established the Wedding Design Company, how had celebrations evolved in your opinion?
VM: When I started, there were only two or three people in the wedding business. Most weddings were done by florists or what in Delhi we call tent houses or in Bombay is called as decorators. My objective was to make the sense of design and aesthetic the most important part of a wedding—in terms of how to design a wedding, how to put it together and more than that, how to plan a wedding. We were the first company to actually give this thing an entire structure, some accountability and make it professional. Today nobody works without a wedding designer or a planner.

BH: The most exotic wedding locations where you’ve planned celebrations.
VM: We have done weddings in over 33 overseas destinations, including every possible city in Italy, Vienna, Mauritius, Spain, Arizona, Maldives. Florence and Salzburg remain favourites.

BH: Do you see this as the beginning of long-term changes in the scale of celebrations?
VM: I believe that is where we were inevitably headed. This generation of couples getting married are looking for something more meaningful and intimate. It’s just that the pandemic accelerated the process. Essentially, weddings are gearing towards more intimate and home-style celebrations. 

BH: Apart from downsizing and sanitisation protocols, do you see anything about celebrations that began out of necessity this year becoming a trend, at least for the next two years or so?
VM: I think e-invites have been there for a while but that will continue being something that people will want to do, that’s one.

Another important element has been the creation of care packages, which I think will persist till people are absolutely confident and comfortable about mingling in larger crowds. At weddings we organise, we are creating these monogrammed, specially designed sanitisers or wipes as part of care packages. I think we’re going to see many more beauty and cosmetic companies coming with these kinds of packages, in-room hampers, travel kits and such.

Another trend I see happening is daytime festivities. If the government puts a time restriction for night-time celebrations or if hotels shut down early, a sundowner that follows after lunch and wrap up by 7.30 pm is a viable alternative.

As far as weddings are concerned, I think big performances by big artists; I don’t see that coming back for a while. And in terms of sport, golf tournaments will definitely take off—that sport will do well.

BH: How do you see opulence and glamour manifesting itself in festivities?
VM: At some point, Indian weddings did get termed as the big fat Indian wedding. I think a large part was because of the fun, colour, emotion and bold sentimentality that characterise Indian celebrations, not the numbers—it never was. It was always about your immediate people. I think the trend now will be that people will realise that they can do small weddings.

BH: Any innovations that have been experimented with that you see becoming a trend?
VM: I had seen some really interesting designed bento boxes at a celebration. It will be interesting to see how this catches on, along with use crockery that’s disposable but interestingly done. These also becomes more sustainable, recyclable. It’s a little bit of a wild card but for celebrations involving youngsters—where food is important but it’s more the bar—it could catch on.

BH: What’s the big change you see sticking on beyond the pandemic?
VM: The three-day wedding is becoming a two-day celebration; the big sangeet has probably gone away, with the mehendi and sangeet celebrations merging into one.

BH: What kind of advice do you give clients who are looking to celebrate or host events? What have the popular requests been? 
VM: Open spaces as far as possible. Clients want to see how they can limit the teams working on an event (as far as can be managed, they’d rather not have to limit their guest lists), with a leaner team and multitask from an event perspective.

BH: Do you think this pandemic will see the end of destination weddings, at least for the next couple of years?
VM: Strangely, that has not been affected as one would have imagined. Of course, overseas destinations are not on the agenda in the foreseeable future, but newer destinations have come up, the kind that would never have even been considered. In this current climate, made in India has become the way to go. Rishikesh has become big. Any place that you can drive down to, whether it’s somewhere near Bombay, Puri, Agra, Jaisalmer, has become a destination for celebration. Boutique hotels too are becoming popular options, like the Rajvilas Oberoi near Jaipur, a beautiful property, was not considered as a wedding venue because of the limited number of rooms. But that’s changed now.

BH: Do you see celebrities sort of setting a precedent when it comes to quieter celebrations? 
VM: I think in the last few years, celebrities have anyway been hosting celebrations on a smaller scale. When Virat (Kohli) and Anushka (Sharma) got married, it was a small wedding. Even when Priyanka Chopra got married, I don’t think she had a guest list of more than a 100 people, or perhaps less.