mumbai, india —
Naveena Vanamala sits motionless as her makeup artist huddles, carefully pressing tiny white dots of pigment into her eyebrows on the most important day of her life. Her phone keeps ringing. There are no flowers to put in her hair.
Normally, the bride’s father deals with issues with vendors as part of his role as the ceremony’s financier and master of ceremonies, but her father passed away six months ago and she is now making last-minute decisions about her Mumbai wedding, unsure if she will be able to afford it.
A 26-year-old social media marketing executive makes about $145 a month. But their wedding budget, already a hefty $3,200, quickly doubled. She took out a bank loan. Her fiancé, who already had a mortgage, took out debt on his house again.
“It wasn’t worth taking out such a large loan,” Vanamara says. “But we didn’t have a choice. We had to do it.”
Now streaming: Anticipation of a big wedding in India has left many in debt. Upgrade to see the full report.
Across India, weddings are often huge, multi-day celebrations and fuel an industry worth about $130 billion, according to analysts at U.S. investment bank Jefferies.
Here, marriage and money are linked by social pressure on the bride’s parents to pay for the lavish wedding and, in some cases, the dowry, a gift given to the groom’s family that is now officially prohibited but still changes hands.
For poor households, the anticipation of a grand event with gifts of money, cash, household goods and even vehicles can turn a daughter’s wedding into a financial crisis.
At the other end of the spectrum, gold jewelry stacked on velvet trays, intricately embroidered lehengas (long skirts) and professionally choreographed dances in front of thousands of guests are the hallmarks of India’s high-end weddings. According to a Jefferies analysis, on average Indians spend about twice as much on their wedding as they do on their education.
Kaveri Mehta’s father lingers near the entrance, eyes flickering between the road and his cell phone, waiting for guests to his daughter’s wedding. He admitted that he was a little worried.
Although it is an auspicious day, roads across Delhi are clogged with wedding traffic.
For him, this moment carries the weight of two years’ worth of planning, including coordinating vendors, managing reservations, and keeping every ongoing piece on schedule. “We prepare everything and on the day, we are all happy and enjoying the party,” said Rajiv Mehta. “But it takes a lot of effort to prepare.”
Abhinav Singh arrives in Delhi for lavish wedding
Abhinav Singh arrives in Delhi for lavish wedding
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As he waited, he caught a glimpse of his daughter as she passed by, smiled, and was momentarily drawn into the celebratory atmosphere that had taken months to create. Inside, everything is already in place and the scene is recreated down to the smallest detail. Crystal chandeliers sparkle next to long food tables and towering arrangements of fresh flowers. The air smells of flowers, butter, and cardamom.
Kaveri Mehta came here to marry Abhinav Singh, her childhood friend and classmate turned lover. Dressed in sparkling red and ivory, they sit side by side on a flower-covered stage, beaming as friends and family line up to congratulate them.
Their weddings attract hundreds of guests, elaborate decorations, and relatives from all over the world. Behind a glittering stage and endless food counters, a team of around 150 people, from decorators to caterers, worked to make this wedding a reality.
Mehta said she once envisioned something more intimate, but a smaller guest list wasn’t really an option. “There are social protocols,” she explains. “You invite people just because you’re invited to a wedding.”
For many families, weddings are as much about community and relationships as they are about couples. “It’s considered a bad idea to keep it closed,” she says.
Her father watches the celebration with a quiet smile on his face. “It looks like a good thing to other people,” he says. “But we know what happened there.” Weddings like this can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Vikramjeet Sharma, the luxury wedding planner who organized the gala, says his clients spend between $500,000 and $3 million on these elaborate, multi-day events.
He says that for more than 20 years, the size and luxury of weddings has skyrocketed, almost surpassing other comparable events. As a result, expectations are rising that each wedding will feel bigger and more distinctive than the last.
“These are well-travelled guests. Luxury is not new to them,” says Sharma. He added that for $3 million, a couple can secure a palatial estate in Rajasthan, a multi-day outright buyout, premium liquor, elaborate décor and a top-notch cast.
Expenses don’t just start with the wedding. Problems often begin long before a match is found.
From a swanky apartment in Derry, the three women who run The Vows marriage counseling service spend their days helping families find suitable spouses.
Payal Mehta Choo told CNN that families come with detailed expectations, including education, income, appearance and strong family credentials.
“People want everything. They want their marriage to be a good marriage and a famous family. That should help them climb the social ladder,” she says. “And they wanted love, respect and all the other intangibles.”
Some of these demands are surprisingly specific, added her colleague Ritika Bawa Sachdev. “They’re looking for someone who looks similar,” she says matter-of-factly. “You can’t put a fat woman and a thin man together, and vice versa.”
Despite the rise of dating apps and love marriages, some estimates suggest that more than 90% of marriages in India still take place with the involvement of parents or professional matchmakers.
Money is also a consideration for many families, they say.
“It’s a bank account,” Mehta Chu says bluntly. “Often it’s very transactional. The bank balance is the game-changer and unfortunately also the arbiter of the transaction.”
Anamika Upadhyay, a 19-year-old from northern India, is preparing to marry a man she has only met once. But she’s not the only bride here.
Rows of young couples sit under a long canopy decorated with red cloth and plastic flowers. Prayer music blares from the speakers. The air is thick with the scent of ghee and wood smoke from the sacred fire.
Upadhyay came here because her mother, a single mother, could not afford a traditional wedding ceremony at home.
“I thought the wedding would take place in our village,” she says. “I’m happiest at home. I have all my family and friends at home. It’s just my parents and a few brothers and sisters here.”
What she lost in intimacy, her family gained in financial relief. Household items such as a television, sewing machine, wardrobe, and pressure cooker are stacked neatly nearby.
Each couple receives a set of goods worth about $1,000, traditionally given by the bride’s family as part of their dowry. For many families here, that’s more than a year’s worth of income.
The event is being organized by Tejpal Singh, a community leader and local politician who said he started the event after seeing his family struggling to pay for his daughter’s wedding.
“The biggest problem is moneylenders,” he says. In many rural areas, parents borrow money at unusually high interest rates to pay for wedding expenses and dowry demands.
Some Indian couples who want to save money choose to get married in a group wedding.
Some Indian couples who want to save money choose to get married in a group wedding.
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Singh said mass weddings allow families to marry their daughters without taking out loans, and in exchange, they can increase their children’s education costs.
Although dowry is illegal in India, it remains widespread. According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau, more than 6,000 dowry-related deaths are reported every year, with women sometimes killed in disputes related to dowry payments. Activists say the real number may be higher.
Kunal Madan, a lawyer who often handles such cases, said the demands are often indirect but persistent. “These are not ordinary requests,” he says. “They demand exorbitant amounts of money, property and money that most women cannot afford.”
Priyanka Dabra says her marriage started with celebrations but quickly turned into demands.
She said her father spent about $32,000 on the wedding and gifts, far more than the family could afford, but the demands continued.
Dabula, 31, claims her husband’s family has started asking for more money and even a house. When their demands were not met, she says, she suffered physical abuse, including during her pregnancy.
In an interview with CNN, her husband denied the charges. He admits he was given a motorcycle as a gift during the wedding, but insists it was a voluntary gift, not a dowry, and other claims that he was assaulted are false.
Despite strict laws against dowry, many women are hesitant to press charges due to social prejudice, family pressure and the slow pace of India’s overburdened court system, lawyer Madan said.
Back in Mumbai, the bride’s mother, Vanamala, moves through the modest wedding venue, greeting relatives who have come to celebrate with the couple.
For many families, the marriage of a daughter brings both joy and relief. “Someday we have to let our daughters go,” she says quietly. “Without the girls, our burden will be lighter.”
In many parts of India, daughters are expected to marry and move into their husband’s household. Parents often worry that as women age, their chances in the marriage market, where age, reputation, and family background are heavily checked, diminish.
More than 500 guests will attend the Vanamala celebration. Photographers crowd around the bride like paparazzi as plates of food arrive on the table one after another.
“Today we experienced the feeling of being famous, something we have only seen on TV,” she said with a big smile, her hair parted with a bright red streak, a traditional sign of marriage.
The celebrations will last only a few days, but for Vanamala, the loan will last much longer.
“The wedding was everything I dreamed of,” she says. “But it’s stressful until the loan is finished.”
