Karnataka - Bangalore

Small is beautiful for them

No fanfare: Simple weddings are in great demand of late.

Bangalore: Not all weddings are huge and expensive affairs. Not all weddings have a zillion guests, multi-cuisine buffets and larger-than-life theatrical stage decorations. And not all brides and grooms dress up in Bollywood-style costumes and beam at guests who line up in endless queues to hand out gifts and pose for pictures.

Far away from such razzmatazz is a world where people believe that small is beautiful. They opt for small weddings and to ensure that expenditure is minimal.

Payal Shah is one such person. She and her fiancé chose to keep their nuptials small and invited just their immediate family and friends. “We had a small ceremony at a temple. My father later made a small donation to the temple,” she said. Her husband Diarmaid Byrne emailed their friends to announce their hitching up. “We had about 50 guests. We then got our wedding registered under the Special Marriages Act,” she said.

The wedding of Bhavani Prakash, a theatre person, was indeed memorable what with the entire expenditure totting up to Rs. 5,000. “We were forced to get married in a temple, though we would have rather just signed a few papers in a Registrar’s Office. The best part was when guests thought that the prasad that was being distributed in donnes to be the lunch!” she said. After the wedding, the newlyweds treated their close friends to breakfast at Shanti Sagar. “We got what we wanted — a small and intimate wedding.”

Sushma Veerappa, a filmmaker, got married to Anand Adkoli in the puja room at her parents’ home. “We wanted a really simple wedding. I am totally against the grandeur and the needless rituals.”

She said that close relatives and good friends were the only guests at their wedding. “What came as a big relief is that even my parents were supportive of my decision. We did not have a priest to officiate the ceremony. We just exchanged garlands and he tied the taali,” she said.

Matangi Subbanna, a lecturer in a private college, said that she had a tough time convincing her parents that she did not want a big wedding. “For a whole month, I fought with my parents. Finally, they agreed. We went to the Sub-Registrar’s Office and got married under the Special Marriages Act. My parents had invited around 20 people home for lunch,” she said.

There are a few others who opt for an Arya Samaj wedding where marriages are performed Vedic style for Rs. 8,500. Ganesh Kini, a purohit at the Arya Samaj, said that simple weddings are in great demand.

“We perform at least one wedding every day here. Arya Samaj weddings are popular because they are bereft of unnecessary rituals and are over in one-and-a-half hours,” he said.

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