From gifts, full-fledged bands to lights for decoration and a guest list numbering hundreds, if not thousands, Nepali weddings have become expensive, especially in a society like ours where the lavishness of a wedding stands symbolic to the affluence of the family even if it is temporary.[break]
“When I got married, I knew my parents had taken a loan but I didn’t know it was so much that they would still be paying it off,” says Sarina whose wedding had been a grand affair that lasted for over a week.
A wedding usually is a multi-day event. While in its essence, it portrays strong social and communal values of our culture, it’s interesting to note that weddings now seem to stretch on forever mostly because of our influence by Indian ceremonies.
For instance, the mehendi ceremony, where the bride and relatives alike have their hands decorated by henna, is a ritual that comes from Indian weddings. Perhaps it’s from watching too many televised serials where weddings seem to dominate the storyline.
Ratna Sharma, a housewife, who has been married for a year now, fondly reminisces about her mehendi ceremony.
“There was a function at home. We had invited all our female relatives and friends. There was dancing, drinking and a huge feast. It was like wedding itself, a mini version of the actual event,” says Ratna, adding that even if it isn’t our tradition, it’s now become the most popular and celebrated part of the ceremony.
Marriages are usually elaborate affairs but of late, its extravaganza has achieved a new high. With exquisite décor, extravagant feasts and extensive (often borrowed) rituals, weddings now are highly overrated with a lot of unnecessary pomp and show.
“When I look back at my wedding ceremony, I’m now astounded by the extent to which my parents splurged on it. The flashy stone-studded invitations, 16-course buffet and gifts for the entire family must’ve cost a fortune,” says Sarina, adding that for her middle class parents, it surely was quite a burden.
One’s wedding is undoubtedly the most important celebration in one’s life since marriage has become not just a social or religious obligation but a glitzy and glamorous affair, too. No matter what strata of society one belongs to, wedding is one occasion when even the poorest of the poor would like to spend liberally.
Photo Courtesy: Prianka Rauniyar
While no one should ever mortgage their house for the luxury of throwing a wedding bash, the fact remains that a wedding is the only occasion when one can experience guilt-free splurging. It’s socially sanctioned to spend a lot of money and not doing so might even be societal suicide to a certain extent if one wants to portray a well-off image in the society.
“My parents spent lavishly without uttering a single word about the expenses. Even today, when I mention the loans, they shrug it off and avoid discussing the topic. Instead, they focus on how well the event had gone and how relatives kept talking about it for months afterwards,” Sarina adds.
Nepali weddings aren’t the same anymore. Anyone who has been observing the trend over the years can see the humungous changes that have taken place and by what margin. Whether it’s jewelry or clothes or other trivial details like lights and flowers, people have started splurging on every aspect related to weddings.
There is also now a drastic change in the way marriages are celebrated, especially in the metro cities. One can now arrange a wedding ceremony sitting at home with just a click of a mouse and decide the venue, menu and other information about the party, without rushing about inundated with a zillion chores like marriage preparations that entailed earlier.
To reduce the burden of organizing and arranging everything, people today usually opt to hire a wedding planner who takes care of the entire wedding process. All one needs to do is tell the wedding planner the budget of the wedding, and then they will plan the entire affair. With different packages available, depending on the budget, the choice is endless. Services range from simple to the most extravagant, as per the client’s preference.
With banks providing “personal loans” and wedding planners to take care of every minute detail of the affair, weddings have become commercialized, and the wedding sector is now a thriving and fruitful business.
Somya Gurung, a freelance wedding planner who has been in the business for the past five years, says that business has doubled in the last two years.
“The number of clients I get requests from is a lot more today than it was when I first started. I’ve had to turn down offers because the wedding dates clashed,” says Somya, adding that she has passed on her clients to friends who’ve been lured into the business by its increasing prospects.
Rosy Bhandari, another freelance wedding planner, mentions that when she ventured into the business as a hobby some ten years back, there wasn’t much scope for it and she would just get one or two clients in a year. But now, the situation has undergone a radical transformation and she too has had to turn down clients as Somya does.
“Weddings have become a business that’s growing every single day. There’s a lot of money in it,” says Rosy who is sometimes surprised by her clients’ willingness to spend huge sums of money on invitations, flowers and other minor details.
From designers to wedding planners, and professional photographers to caterers, everyone wants a share of this huge opportunity, so much so that one can see it getting commercialized in the minutest details possible. The latest trends that have come up, which revolve around weddings, are bridal exhibitions, fashion and jewelry shows and banquet halls being opened in almost every nook and cranny.
Each and every detailed aspect of weddings has been emphasized to such an extent that vendors are leaving no stone unturned to cash in even on the smallest of things like flower arrangements, gifting, invitations and decorations.
Wedding celebrations, too, have escalated to such an extent that an opulent and glamorous ceremony seems like the only way to go. The fact that wedding is a sacred and pure affair and holds a lot of meaning and significance in the lives of the two, who are coming together, seems to have faded away.
Photo: Bijay Gajmer
“I’ve organized many weddings in my career as a wedding planner and it’s sad to say that I have yet to see a wedding where the focus is on the unity of the bride and the groom. So much attention is paid to everything else that the essence of the wedding fades in comparison,” says Rosy.
Somya adds that the families and even the bride and groom are so wrapped up in functions and hence exhausted by the tedious processes. “Sometimes, it ends up being a show put up for others rather than about “getting married” and beginning a new life together which is essentially what it’s supposed to be about,” she adds.
“I guess you just have to know and understand how much is too much and put your foot down at some point,” says Sarina who now wishes she had drawn a line at the extravagant display of wealth during her wedding. “My parents could’ve retired and enjoyed a relaxed lifestyle instead of having to work and pay off the loans.”
What’s sad is that despite the millions spent on weddings, marriages are hard work. In our culture, marriage isn’t just about the to-be husband and wife coming together but their respective families becoming one extended family, too. With the commercialization of wedding ceremonies, rivalries begin early with the functions acting as a platform to showcase the family wealth and the respective families trying to outdo the other.
Granted that every relationship has its quirks and it’s often said that the rocks in her head fit the holes in his. But without mutual respect, affection, communication, and shared values between not just the bride and groom but their families as well, the millions spent on the affair might better be spent elsewhere.
The high costs of Nepali weddings
A traditional Nepali wedding is the combination of family, fun and food amidst the uniting of two people in marriage. In Nepali societies, a wedding ceremony is regarded important not only for the bride and groom but also their respective families. In close-knit family structures, a wedding ceremony represents family reputation and is often taken as an opportunity to establish the family’s status.
In this light, wedding ceremonies have emerged as a thriving business with people ready to spend lavishly for the “once in a lifetime” event. In recent years, wedding budget has escalated to a new high with inflation on the rise. But the high prices of traditional wedding prerequisites has not dissuaded people from cutting down on the costs; rather, they have started to go beyond the traditional requirements, choosing to make the weddings as elaborate and lavish as possible.[break]
“I decided to hold my wedding reception in a five-star hotel as they are regarded classier than any other banquet halls in town,” says Subhrit Malla, 29, who got married 18 months ago.
Hosting a wedding reception in a five-star hotel costs double than in other banquet halls. There are various price ranges in numerous bouquet halls, too, depending on the hall’s reputation, number of guests invited and the choice of menu. The addition of beverages means more costs to a wedding reception. Some hotels and halls also vary their tariff rates, pricing high during wedding seasons.
“This month is nearly fully booked for wedding reception parties,” says Sushma Sharma who looks after reservations at Direction Exhibition and Convention Centre (DECC), Tripureshwor. She adds that the number of reservations this year has increased drastically compared to their past records. DECC charges from Rs 700 to Rs 800 per person on average.
When The Week inquired with different banquet halls that host such wedding dinners, most of them were booked for the coming month and the average costs per person is Rs 700. This indicates the increment of business in these halls that rent their space particularly for wedding ceremonies. The thriving business also somewhat justifies the mushrooming of such halls in the capital.
Hotels, on the other hand, also reserve their space for wedding ceremonies and cocktail dinners during the wedding season.
“Though we also host different conferences and cocktail dinners in our premises, we try to cancel these functions when the wedding season is on,” says Dipendra Singh, Food & Beverage Manager at Hotel Yak & Yeti.
The hotel charges from Rs 1,300 to Rs 1,800 per person for such wedding ceremonies. In addition, clients are required to book their space six-months before the wedding date and also make advance payments.
Some families choose not to worry about these booking and payment matters. There’s a rising trend where people hire wedding planners to accomplish such mundane jobs for them. Wedding planners, however, take their own share in the wedding budget. Though families can wash their hands off the management hassles, this is an addition to the increasing expenses incurred by current urban weddings.
But even for the families who would rather have the jobs done by themselves, the price for the wedding doesn’t get any lesser. With people’s growing wishes for an extravagant wedding, many side businesses such as beauty parlors and flower decorators are also thriving during the wedding season.
It costs around Rs 2,500 to Rs 15,000 to decorate a wedding car, and people won’t mind going over the top for this decoration as the wedding car also represents the affluence of the family concerned. Similarly, decoration for bridal room costs from around Rs 6,000 to Rs 25,000 and even goes beyond. Stage decorators, on the other hand, charge from Rs 15,000 onwards.
People have also become very conscious about the setting during cocktail parties, says Singh. “We have a well-decorated space for holding wedding parties. We also design the space according to color themes if the client so wishes,” he says.
Apart from these expenses, there are other minute outflows such as bridal makeup and invitation cards. A salon charges a minimum Rs 15,000 for bridal makeup while the minimum cost for an invitation card is Rs 14 per piece.
With these expenses, a typical Nepali wedding has reached the edge of sheer commercialization. People are also seen to take wedding as an occasion to display their wealth and it has provided ample opportunity for the wedding businesses to boom.
This trend has convoluted against those people who would want a simple wedding. Ujjwal Pradhan, 36, and his bride had resorted to a simple wedding. But even though they evaded the marriage rituals and other obligations, it took them Rs 12,000 just to host a wedding dinner.
As many people seem to care less about wedding expenditures as per the current trends, the commercialization of wedding has certainly raised the bar high. Weddings have become more of a burden than a reason to celebrate, and this has put additional financial stress on families who don’t wish to spend more than a certain stipulated amount.
Weddings as bases to check tax evasion
With the wedding season round the corner, the would-be bride and groom and their families are certainly busy planning for the big day. With new trends in marriage ceremonies, Nepali families have also started to organize multiple functions that last for a week, if not more. During this period, costs for a single marriage in an urban setting totals in millions of Rupees.
With marriage ceremonies and wedding reception parties emerging as extravagant affairs, the Inland Revenue Department has been checking on such affairs with regards to tax revenues.[break]
“People have become spendthrift when it comes to marriages. This shows the affluence of the persons or families involved. We look out if such persons or families able to spend in such lavish ways are paying taxes according to their income,” says Tanka Mani Sharma, Director General of the Inland Revenue Department.
The Social Behaviour Reform Act 1976 enshrines different provisions to curb the escalating expenditures in wedding procedures. For instances, the number of the people for a wedding procession mustn’t exceed 51 people, and the gold to be offered to the bride/groom shouldn’t exceed 20 grams, among other stipulations.
These provisions aren’t only non-existent in the Nepali social concept but people are also choosing to have more elaborated wedding ceremonies, sometimes beyond their financial capability, to establish social prestige of the family.
The Inland Revenue Department, in their attempt, has published its notices in different news media requiring exchange of VAT bills with the service providers while organizing any traditional and cultural events, including marriages.
“We’ve requested the public to clearly state their income source while paying for the VAT bills,” says Sharma.
To keep track of the expenses during wedding ceremonies, the Department collects information from wedding venues such as party palaces, hotels and banquet halls. However, the expenses for other affairs in weddings rise much higher than the costs of venues.
But, as the Department is checking on the sumptuous expenditures at weddings, the persons or families who have been evading taxes may find themselves in trouble after hosting such profligate affairs. On the other hand, families who have taken loans to fulfill the obligations for such ceremonies should also have proper documents to testify their income source.
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