HYDERABAD: The hustle and bustle behind the scenes of weddings have come to a grinding halt. Be it lockdown or night curfew, many have either postponed or cancelled weddings and get-togethers due to the worsening Covid situation. Now with a lockdown being clamped, it has become all the more difficult for all those who work behind the scenes of weddings.
Right from florists to priests, everyone is calling off events. Samuel Ebenezer Pillai, a wedding planner, tries his best to make a wedding the most cherished memory for the bride and the groom, but now with a limited number of guests. “We at Wedding Stories try to keep the traditional factor alive in our plans.
As there are restrictions on the number of guests, we make sure that we ask our clients to limit their guest list. We also suggest them a temple wedding followed by a small house party with their close family and friends. These days, clients too are not asking for elaborate works. Now with the lockdown, I think we are again getting back to what we had done last year,” he says.
Flowers, which bring life into a wedding, have also been altered in the list of things. Vishal, a florist who hand picks flowers for wedding decors, says, “It has been quite a difficult time for all of us. As a florist, I could say that bulk orders have reduced drastically. We are unable to sell flowers which we pick up for weddings, even if we reduce the rates. If the flowers are not sold, we will have to junk them.”
Meanwhile, priests and pundits in the city are also avoiding weddings. Suresh, a pundit, says, “I do not want to take the risk of conducting a wedding. The situation is not appropriate and people crowd during weddings. There is a higher chance of contracting Covid. For now, I want to restrict myself from attending or conducting weddings.”
Rajeshwar Sharma, too, has been conducting weddings which have a limited guest list. “I ensure that the wedding I conduct does not have more than 25 people. I have also cut down the duration and am trying to complete the rituals in two hours so that everyone disperses from the venue as soon as possible.” Rev Dr T Bhasker, a priest, says most of his church congregation has cancelled weddings.
“If at all a wedding has to be conducted, we allow only 50 people. Apart from that, physical distancing and sanitisation are taken care of accordingly. But with the increasing cases, most of them are postponing weddings or cancelling them.”