Click... for a soulmate

A. VISHNU

SOME THINGS cut across all cultures -- like the planning that a traditional wedding demands. Did some one say `marriages are made in heaven'? Could well be true -- but these days, they receive a helping hand from the Internet where a new breed of canny service providers promises to weed out all wedding-related managerial problems at the click of a mouse. Some truly awesome ``wedding portals'' have sprung up that offer a range of wedding services.

The Mumbai-based weddingsutra.com, which claims to be `India's first wedding portal', provides a long list of services both before and during the ceremony. It was started just over a year ago by Madhulika Mathur and Parthip Thyagarajan as a one-stop wedding services shop.

A city-wise directory (includes Chennai) of tailors, beauty salons, astrologers, tours and travels, fashion designers along with basic services like audio rental systems, mandap decorators, orchestra, catering etc. is available in the vendors section. One can also seek help from a jury of experts who would answer your marriage-related questions. A mini-archive of previously answered queries is also listed. There are links to its `features' section, which is maintained by the site's in-house wedding experts. Topics like``20 ways to save...",``Offbeat Wedding gift ideas",``A man's guide to buying diamonds'' etc. are discussed by the site's in-house wedding experts.

One invaluable edge the Internet provides is to allow families to create their own wedding home page and use it to keep relatives and friends posted with details... right from the engagement up to the actual ceremony.

Yet another site which focusses on hassle-free weddings is www.shaadis.com. It's the brainchild of a trio in their 20s — Rohit Alexander Jacob, Rahul Cherian and Rupa Isaac. The strong point here is the exhaustive list of pre-wedding services like furniture rentals, halls etc. and entertainment-based services like hiring of dance troupes, magicians and and even DJs. Chennai is one of the cities covered. They provide couples with a few pages to set up their personal information, photo albums on the Net. You can use the site to sent free e-vites -- invitations for engagement, bridal shower or wedding, by email.

From Ahmedabad comes www.shaadiinfo.com whose own lineup of wedding services is worth looking at. However, one needs to remember that sometimes sites have a regional bias and all portals do not cover all cities. Powered by another Mumbai-based agency, Satyanet, Sagaai.com is a site, which focusses on match making but also has a few other services. Entries containing information like Place, Age, Height, Religion, Occupation etc. makes it easy to look for brides/bridegrooms. In order to avail of the facilities on the site, one has to sign up for a free membership which provides the basic services but a paid membership (Rs. 1,000 or $22) is required for added features.

The ``Wedding Planner'' section includes a bagful of small free downloadable software to help you create checklists or deal with "Money Matters", ``Gifts'' and the rest. Sagaai has also gone one step further by creating a special section for people who are mentally and physically challenged — which seems to be a very thoughtful initiative.

Chennai has its own wedding services portal: www.kalyanam.com. Besides the usual wedding services, the site offers to capture the wedding on video and then display it on its web page for three months, as well as providing you with an email address so that friends can send their greetings. Matrimonialsindia.com, created by the Delhi-based WebLink Peripherals, provides free space for posting details and photographs and seems to be a site dedicated to matrimonials for Indians at home and abroad. Also worth checking out is www.bharatmatrimony.com, which has region- specific services like tamilmatrimony.com, keralamatrimony.com, kannada matrimony.com and so on. The tamilmatrimony site includes an online facility for bookings marriage halls in Chennai and even placing a classified advertisement in the matrimonial section of major newspapers.

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