Dream theme

To make your wedding reception stand out and be the talk of the town, it is no longer enough to just have the best caterers and decorators in town. Theme weddings are the order of the day and wedding planners are going out of their way to come up with ideas for your D-Day to be a memorable one.One can pick from the Abhi-Ash to Raveena Tandon style, or Arabian Nights to Bollywood to Rajasthani to Bengali themes. Weddings have traditionally been a barometer of one’s status. And now, for Gen-X, theme weddings are the in thing.“To usher in this era, we have started to plan theme weddings. It is not only good business for us, but it also allows couples to personalise the celebrations and make it different in their own way,” Vinod Bhandari, wedding planner of Wedding Xtraordinaire, a wedding management company.From the design of the invitation cards to the attire of the bride and the groom – everything must be in sync with the theme.“Good décor makes a difference and so paying extra attention to the minute details to make everything picture perfect is needed,” comments Cheena Vyas, wedding planner of Sparkles.The concept of theme weddings is just about two years old in Kolkata. It adds a new dimension to the wedding day,” adds Riya Dewanji from Sparkles.Since Indian weddings have a gamut of customs and rituals, it is wise to decide on different themes for different days.
While Arabian, Egyptian or even Casino themes go well with the pre-marriage parties like a bachelor’s party or a spinster’s night out, when it comes to ceremonies like aiburobhat, ashirbad, sangeet, mehendi or sagai, it is safer to go traditional.But to steal the limelight on the grand finale, the wedding night can be as unique and imaginative as possible.“One of the most-wanted themes is Rajasthani, where we use loads of colour and try to give a very rich look to the wedding,” says Rajiv Lodha, CEO of Launcherz, a wedding management company.And the most recent trend is taking the guests to a different destination and organising the wedding there. This is much more expensive than the other options.“This year, the tourism board of Thailand took some wedding planners from India as the Thai government is promoting the country as a wedding destination. ‘Go Bangkok’ was one of our big-budget destination themes. It is all about being different,” adds Bhandari. Model Jessica Gomes says: “I am a Roman Catholic and I need to follow a certain colour scheme. I would prefer a crystal theme or a sea theme, using mostly white and blue colour for my wedding. I feel that theme gives a unity to the wedding.”