Big fat shaadi now trending

Wedding trends are like fashion trends — they change every season. Like the colour of the bride’s lehenga — royal blue and hot pink is the current favourite but it was fuchsia last year. It is no longer enough to offer guests gulab jamuns, jalebis and vanilla ice cream — tiramisu and baklava are a must. Wedding photos have to be candid, nobody freezes for the camera any more.
The latest trend is the social wedding, where hashtags are created and distributed among guests so that they can live tweet the event and post updates and images on Facebook and Instagram. Hashtags like #AKwedsKK right under the “Anil weds Kavita” notice outside the banquet hall or propped up at the reception tables are now a common sight.
While some may try to buck the trend with unplugged weddings, most couples are embracing the ubiquity of social media, and smartphone cameras. In fact, according to a 2014 survey done by popular American websites Mashable and TheKnot. com, “55% of the couples interviewed used a wedding hashtag and 20% encouraged their guests to use their hashtag by sharing it on ceremony programs”.
Neha Majithia, a Mumbaibased entrepreneur, got married in a small and intimate ceremony in San Francisco in November last year. She floated a wedding hashtag, #nehanakul14, for the guests. “People take so many pictures at your wedding and post them ad hoc online. It becomes impossible to keep track of these photos. A hashtag just effortlessly collates them,” says Majithia. “Plus, you never know, they might capture moments the official photographers missed.”
The hashtag can be fun and catchy — like #sugarsgettingmarried at a recent Mumbai wedding — or something simple like the couples’ names or surnames. Kunal and Neha Jain, who recently got married in Goa, went for a simple, #mrandmrsjain simply because all others options were taken. “A lot of people were already calling me that so it made sense to stick with it,” she says. They printed the hashtag and put it up all over the venue — hotel lobby, rooms and even at the functions.
Social media also offers those who can’t wait the required week or two for the official images a quick fix. “Kunal and I could see every aspect of the wedding through these images. There were a lot of pre-wedding functions on both sides that we couldn’t attend together. Guest photos gave me an idea of what his party was like and he could see what happened at my mehendi,” she adds. The Jains, at last count, had close to 200 pictures of their wedding tagged on Facebook and Instagram.
Gaurav Wadhwa is all for novel wedding trends — he wore an LED-lit pagdi at his own wedding two years ago — but isn’t fully convinced by this hashtag tamasha. “I think this trend is a little tacky,” he says. “A hashtag makes these posts and pictures accessible to people outside your network of friends and family. I’m not sure if that’s what newlywed couples want.”
Apart from privacy, there’s always the chance some unflattering shots end up being shared — where you just bit into the wedding cake or the one where you tried to stifle a yawn.