Aditya Motwane, 36, CEO,
Percept D’Mark Wedding Mangement Services, Mumbai
How it started: Percept had organised the Sahara Wedding in 2004 in Lucknow. That’s when we realised the great potential of weddings as a business, as each wedding entails various events. Put together, a wedding covers four or five days of festivities, which in turn generate great revenues.

First ‘it’ wedding: The Sahara wedding was special and challenging. Just the scale of planning that went into every detail was by itself was a life enriching experience. There were two weddings within a span of four days with over 15,000 high-profile guests being flown into Lucknow. The feeling of being a part of something so humungous cannot be explained in just a few words.

Great weddings are about: Innovative themes, exotic destinations, detailed planning, experience, great partners in the form of vendors, flawless production and proper guidance to the team on a regular basis.

Getting personal: My own wedding was a mad one. I had two functions that went on till five in the morning. The idea was to just party. Aqeel was the DJ while Gurleen Puri had done the décor and with a family of over 100 members. There was never a dull moment.

The M factor: Everyone wants his or her wedding to be extra special. Whether it’s spending on exotic themes or innovative entertainment acts like a 110-member symphony orchestra playing love ballads at the reception, or even a lavish spread of cuisines, the more the money, the merrier!

WHAT'S HOT
DÉCOR: Oriental, Las Vegas and Buddha Bar settings are excitingly refreshing. Eco-friendly themes are also in demand.

MENU: Food is constantly evolving. We’ve flown down seven chefs?representing virtually every international cuisine – Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Italian, Mexican, Lebanese and Spanish – along with their teams that comprise other chefs and servers for one of our clients. The total international crew was over 125 people besides the Indian spread that comprised 16 different state cuisines – Gujarati, Sindhi, chaat, Punjabi, Rajasthani, South Indian, Lakhnavi, Bengali and so on.

DESTINATIONS: This trend is a huge hit among the affluent, with Macau, Bali, The Maldives, Rajasthan and Aamby Valley topping the list.

LIVE ACTS: In India there are very few real wedding performers such as Daler Mehndi, Sonu Nigam, Shankar Ehsan Loy, Sukhbir, Infra-Red and Vyas Brothers who are usually the sangeet favourites. Bollywood regulars like Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan, Shilpa Shetty, Mallaika Arora and Shah Rukh Khan are also huge draws for NRIs.

INVITES: These depend a lot on the personal choice of the family. Usually cards represent traditional values and cultures so there are very few that get into real innovative designs. But you could have leading artists painting the front cover of the card, or a gold or silver coated card that contains dry fruits, paan and sweets along with the actual invite.

Gurleen Puri, 39,
Gurleen M Puri Wedding and Special Event Company, Mumbai
How it started: My wedding decor started with my home parties, as we loved to entertain every week. It was very interesting to come up with different themes for the house parties in terms of food, ambience and décor — those little touches — till I was approached by friends to do their house parties, birthdays, anniversaries and eventually weddings.

First ‘it’ wedding: Tanya Godrej’s wedding to Arvind Dubash was my first big wedding. It was among the first really big weddings in India. Dealing with a perfectionist and connoisseur like Parmeshwar Godrej was the biggest training you could ask for. She wanted nothing but the best for her daughter and for her guests. Meeting her expectations was a big challenge. I achieved new heights with that wedding.

Great weddings are about: Planning well with lots of inputs and brainstorming with?the client and their family (their tastesand preferences), the?requirements they may have (entertainment, invites, gifts, etc.). Customising and personalising events to the client’s taste and personality.

Top clients: The Godrej family, Vikram Chatwal (Mumbai wedding) and Zayed Khan among others.

The M Factor: Money can certainly give you better arrange–ments in terms of better venues, larger menu, celebrity artistes and grand décor. But it doesn’t necessarily guarantee the best because the best comes from the heart. I and my team work with a lot of passion. If a client respects us and our work, he’s sure to get the best from us, irrespective of the budget.

WHAT'S HOT
DÉCOR: Eclectic and contemporary décor with an accent on bright colours. Unconventional and fun themes like spice market, dons and divas and so on.

MENU: Not too many cuisines (two or three strong cuisines with very distinct menus).

DESTINATIONS: Newer and more virgin locales are highly sought after. It could be an island off Bangkok or the Scottish Isles.

INVITES: Simple and non-fussy.

Vandana Mohan, 45,
The Wedding Design Company, Delhi
How it started: My event management company is over 15 years old. Looking at my experience in logistics, organisation and a strong sense of aesthetics, a corporate client asked me to do his daughter’s wedding. It was a huge success, which set the stage for more weddings. I’ve been in the wedding planning business for the past five years now.

First ‘it’ wedding: The Chatwal wedding in Delhi. It was truly special because of the couple, Priya and Vikram Chatwal. They were both very sure about the look for each occasion. It was a simple brief, but very clear. After that they just let us plan and dream for them. It was challenging because it was across three cities and 14 hotels with all the décor and planning for each occasion done by us. We handled both logistics and hospitality as well.

Great weddings are about: Dealing with nervous parents, mood boards for each functions and a good working relationship with the client and his or her family.

Getting personal: My own wedding was a small, simple and intimate affair and a lot of fun.

Top themes: Phantom of the Opera and Pakeezah-night theme weddings for clients among others.

The M Factor: More money means a grander wedding since you can hire the best talent. You have more options and have no restrictions on the logistics and event planning side of it. A wedding can be made very magical and you can see your dreams become reality. Limited-budget weddings are creatively very challenging for a wedding planner.

WHAT'S HOT
THEMES AND DÉCOR: Indian themes are always a favourite. Recreating the grandeur and luxury of a bygone era – the Rajput Gharana, the opulence of the Mughal Sultanate and the richness of the Chola Dynasty. It could be Middle-Eastern, larger-than-life themes revolving around movies (English or Hindi), Club Lounge themes — clubs from Manhattan, LA, Niki Beach Lounge, Miami. For one of our clients, we actually recreated the Niki Beach look, minus the water. It was all white with lounge beds on the sand dunes of Jodhpur!

MENU: Specialty food such as tapas, Japanese cuisine, etc. Also small portions of food are a big trend. Bite size is in!

DESTINATIONS: Istanbul, Turkey, beach resorts in Kovalam and Spain.

LIVE ACTS: International artists such as Gypsy kings, Natalie Cole and Rihanna are extremely popular.

INVITES: Could be etched on glass in a silver frame. Or Tanjore paintings or commissioning an artist to do invites — a trend that has made a comeback.

Martin DaCosta, 38, CEO,
Seventy Event Management Group
How it started: Seven years back, we launched Seven Steps Wedding Management Services to cater to a growing demand from our private clients for bespoke wedding events and hospitality design. There was a growing demand for a more international standard of holistic event management of weddings?that were growing larger and more complex?by the?year. Seven Steps was created to help families plan, design and manage their weddings at every level — from hotel and travel bookings, guest RSVP, right through to the final thank-you cards and everything in between.

First ‘it’ wedding The fact that we launched the business of super large weddings in Udaipur back in 2001 speaks volumes for Seven Steps. It was the first modern, large, private wedding in Udaipur in many, many years. We handled Jag Mandhir, Manik Chowk and the City Palace on behalf of our client and staged a stunningly elegant series of events that were coupled with some very sophisticated guest management and hospitality management techniques for over 1,400 guests. Our client was a wonderful family into Mumbai’s gem and jewelery business, whose temple we helped launch some years later.

Trade secrets: Deciding on the venue is an absolutely key decision the family has to make. We have been researching venues across India for clients for some years now and have found some beautiful places to host weddings. When the event venues and hotels are right, the rest usually falls into place assuming that the quality of conceptual ideas and their execution is innovative, flawless, and elegant. That to my mind is in the detail of design – how exactly a petal should fall, what copperplate handwriting should be used on a table seating name card — these details make or break a wedding.

The final piece in the jigsaw is in the management of guests, what we like to call the energy of the event. When all guests, family, bride and groom have been made to feel special and when a genuine connection between them starts to develop—usually after the first cocktail party or mehndi, and most often in a remote, out station venue — and the energy starts to flow between everyone present from event to event, a wedding can be genuinely joyous. This feeling is pervasive and the main objective at any of our weddings.

Getting personal I got married to Sagarika, my beautiful pop star wife, at Kashid in 2001. The ceremony was for 200 people — friends and family from Mumbai, Kolkata and all over the world. It happened under coconut palms with a party on the beach that lasted through the night. There was dancing and a sit-down dinner looking over the sea, grilled seafood, and champagne flowing. Barefoot in a linen suit, watching a setting sun, 200 people had the time of their lives!

The big fight The planning process is the most challenging part. Managing different expectations, aesthetic values and budgetary priorities of so many people is always a difficult, drawn out process. It takes patience and a great deal of experience to steer a path towards the perfect wedding.

USP: The amount of historical and design research we undertake into an event theme has also become even more rigorous. We have a ‘style historian’ permanently employed at Seven Steps to research. Her work can range from the Versailles Court of Louis XIV, to the life of a Zenana in Aurangazeb’s reign. If we choose a Mughal theme for a reception, we get into the detail of a specific period and place of Mughal India and then stick to that research through the detailing of the event. I suppose this is a trend of sorts, although we haven’t found anyone else doing it.

What’s Hot?
THEMES: Wild forest global splendour, floral fantasia, mystic Asia, are among my favourites because a blend of luxury and opulence can be merged beautifully.

Aseem Merchant, 35,
Owner, Options 1
How it started: I own an entertainment company called Options 1 which primarily does events and advert film production. I started the company eight years ago and have successfully handled domestic and international brands like Provogue, Fila, Versace, Iceberg etc. Five years ago, my father told me that a high-profile builder friend of his needed help with his son’s wedding. That was our first experience.

First ‘it’ wedding: We only do high-profile weddings as it is very demanding and one cannot do more than two to three weddings per season. A wedding we did in Bali for a Jakarta based media tycoons daughter was indeed challenging as, language barriers, no trained local management, low flight connectivity besides the Indonesian government’s red tapeism were hurdles. But we always enjoy a challenge.

The big fight: Outstation weddings pose innumerable challen–ges but by far the most demanding of these is logistics (arrivals, departures, crew facilitation, shipments, cargo clearance, license and permissions) because it tends to be a tedious process and the backbone of a successful event.

Getting personal Surprisingly I had a small get together at my place and a court wedding. I guess I’m so used to getting paid to do weddings that I wasn’t motivated enough to do a free one for myself!

The M factor Money is important in planning extra special and memorable events. But it’s not the only thing. A smart wedding planner will know exactly how to stretch the rupee for maximum impact.

Weddings next: Once Richard Branson starts his trips to the moon, I’m sure we’ll have requests for weddings on the moon. And we love nothing better than a stiff challenge.

What’s Hot?
DÉCOR: I myself can take the credit for popularising several new trends — styling wedding albums, wedding video shoots, starting destination weddings, bringing in a concept of lighting experts, starting the Arabic style of mehndi and the salsa trend, bringing in tarot card readers, introducing belly dancers, introducing film set designs to wedding planning, using Swarovski work on invites and bringing in a minimalist décor. A mandap I made in Singapore was to my mind the latest of spectacular productions.

DESTINATIONS: For people on a shoe-string budget, I recommend Goa, Nepal and Bali. Those who do have a bigger budget should try more exotic places like Thailand, Jakarta and Costa Rica.
MENU: Currently Mughlai and Awadhi food is very popular. Lots of clients love South American food also especially the peri-peri and barbequed dishes. Youngsters like quick food a lots, ie, food cooked on the spot.

Meher Sarid, 38,
Wedding Stylist, Wedding Art by Meher
How it started I specialised in wedding planning after my hotel school graduation and set up my company Sound of Music in 1994. It handled both corporate events and theme parties and weddings. We were the first known organised face of the wedding industry. In 2000, when the wedding business began to grow, I started to lose out on corporate business. Corporates said I was too much into weddings and feared I would convert their event into an ornate wedding. That was when I stepped up to create a new image and set up a separate company that handled end-to-end wedding solutions called Wedding Art by Meher that focused on thematic décor and florals as well as wedding planning and coordination in addition to a host of other services.

First ‘it’ wedding I did my first theme party while working at the Maurya for Gurleen Manchanda’s father in the year 1992, at his Greater-Kailash residence. But what really launched me was a theme party I did — and continued to do year after year — for an exceptionally kind?gentleman for his daughters 16th birthday where we did a Parisian theme complete with the Eiffel Tower, street-side canopied cafés and a Moulin Rouge dance floor area. We even airlifted and delivered a BMW sports car as her birthday gift, wrapped in a huge red bow.

The big fight Clients have needed convincing about the need for a planner and the wow factor a well-designed wedding brings. Then, the money a client would need to dole out over and above their regular tentwalah and phoolwalah and the new services a planner could get on board. The tent/phoolwala/suppliers have considered me a threat but now it’s all beginning to settle down.

Wedding Peeve I have been looked upon as a trendsetter and have had my designs copied in various parts of India, which is quite a compliment. The quality of the imitation is poor enough to make me cry, though!

Getting personal I had three different ceremonies for my own wedding. I’m a Parsi and my husband is Punjabi so we had a court registry followed by an outdoor lunch reception. Back in ’94, not many people had afternoon weddings, so this was pretty new. Our wedding stage had a backdrop of inlay work similar to that seen in the Taj Mahal. We had a champagne lunch at the Maurya Sheraton, Delhi. Our wedding was attended by quite a few celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Chunky Pandey. After this, we had a quiet Hindu wedding ceremony for just the immediate family on the same day. About a week later, we had a reception for our friends in Hong Kong, where I was based at the time.