Dilemmas of the big fat wedding industry

When the provincial government first introduced its lockdown plans in March of 2020, it was still six months to start of wedding season.

Event planners, venue-owners and associated vendors had all hoped for the dark clouds of pandemic to clear by December much like the rest of the country.

However, expectations couldn’t have been more nescient of the twists and turns reality was bound to take. With restrictions on congregational gatherings and closure of public venues, the event-planning industry that once cracked majority of its profits in months between October to January, was forced to frazzle out. While government-imposed sanctions that lasted over two years left the entire network of businesses built around Big-Fat-Pakistani-weddings to run into the ground.

According to Taha Memon, who runs a Karachi-based event management company called Dawat, it was a troublesome year where everyone in the sector was just endeavoring to merely stay afloat. “I know several people, including marquee owners and event planners that could not meet their overheads amid fluctuating policies and had to ultimately shutdown their businesses during this period,” he told.

In these testing times where other sectors had sympathies of the masses, the wedding industry, which is already derided for its ostentatiousness could afford very little of it. Instead, for those who laud simplicity, the industry’s eminent crash was a silver-living to the coronavirus crisis.

Marriage expenditures had climbed to an all-time high prior to Covid-19, opined Ahmad Raza, trustee of a social-welfare organisation. The peer pressure, he said, was so high that middle and low-income families could no longer afford to get their sons and daughters married without breaking bank and exhausting all resources. “Thankfully, limited events under restrictions meant that everyone could afford to get married with simplicity; without succumbing to social pressure,” he added.

For Muhammad Yousuf, who earns a modest income working at a private company, scheduling his daughter’s wedding during the 2020 lockdowns meant that he no longer had to seek the hefty loan he thought he’d need. “It was a very simple function at home and I saved millions, which I can now use for my second daughter’s marriage,” the father commented.

Where modesty is a concept backed by local clerics like Maulana Muhammad Tanveer, who sternly believe that the unassuming practices established during the pandemic should be enforced in the days after, there is seldom any thought spared about an industry in perils of bankruptcy.

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For Memon and others in the sector, lack of business during the lockdown period had brought them at their wit’s end on how to pay the hundreds of employees they’re responsible for. “Even with barely any events happening, we still had teams to pay and bills to clear, which became our only priority. The government kept changing its policies and prescribed limitations for events, so we just started taking smaller projects that came our way. There was little to no profit in those, but we were just trying to do our best to sustain the business lifecycle until better times,” the Dawat CEO recalled.

Agreeing to which Kashmala Ali, a bride who had to forfeit her elaborate wedding plans for an intimate-gathering past November, said that it was a lot of hassle to keep track of the changing polices. “The venue, which was already difficult to find, had cost me over Rs 17 million for one night. But the night before my Shaadi, we read a government notification stating that all indoor-events have been now been banned,” said Ali. “It was a piercing nightmare and I could feel the earth beneath my feet tremor. I couldn’t stop thinking how on earth could we relocate a whole wedding in just one night and who would even rent us an outdoor venue at such short notice? Would it even be possible to inform all the guests in time, even if we did somehow changed the venue?” she added.

Luckily for Kashmala, she was offered space at the neighbouring venue for a much smaller price, just in time for her event. “My wedding somehow happened but the constant uncertainty took all the enjoyment out of it. I was just constantly panicked,” the newly married told The Express Tribune.

Today, as the province charily inches towards resuming some form normalcy, the wedding industry is now eyeing a long-sought relief from the paralysing business closures that defined the previous year-and-a-half.

According to Memon, wedding costs are likely to spike in the coming months, as vendors start quoting higher-than-usual prices to cover for an extended period of losses. “Sadly, the event or wedding industry is pegged on luxury. So there was never a relief system extended to this sector anywhere around the world, let alone Pakistan. Losses were destined, and now that the city is opening back up, the sector has little choice but to do whatever it takes to cover as soon as possible,” the event planning company head told The Express Tribune.

Additional reporting by Muhammad Phaseeh Ul Haque

Published in The Express Tribune, July 6^th, 2021.