Wedding Photography Goes Big

The “recession-proof” Indian wedding industry has been showing spectacular growth year after year. One of its stand-out aspects is the rise in the demand for wedding photographers, who shoot not just photos but entire videos that look like feature films, complete with drones, multicamera setups, professional lighting and even trailers.

- Mayukh Majumdar

The women’s wear market in India is estimated to be worth around Rs 1,11,467 crore. According to a report in The Economic Times, the Indian film industry grosses around Rs 13,800 crore, and a report by BnBNation estimates that this figure could hit Rs 26,000 crore by 2020. The Indian wedding industry, in comparison, is estimated to be worth over Rs 3,00,000 crore (a KPMG report from 2017 puts it at $40-50 billion) and is growing exponentially at a rate of 25 per cent to 30 per cent on a yearly basis. While figures vary, an average Indian wedding can cost anywhere between Rs 5 lakh to over a crore.

Much has been written about the big, fat Indian wedding. While they vary regionally and as per the specific religious customs of the bride and groom, a typical desi wedding can last for around 10 days. According to a 2012 report in CBS News, India celebrates about 10 million weddings a year, and one can be sure that that number has gone up exponentially in the past seven years. However, while the underlying customs and rituals remain the same, the weddings being held in recent times are a far cry from the ones that were held before the advent of social media. In this age of hashtags and Instagram, the already big and fat Indian wedding has evolved into one that thrives on excess - and that's saying something.