Big Fat Indian Weddings !!

Dear Swathi

I appreciate your views, but sorry I cannot agree with your points of view. Coz,

1. One man's expenditure is another man's gain. So any money spent is somebody else's income. It is NOT a waste.

2. How do you know that the bride's father is not offering any help to the NOBLE Causes as "sponsoring a child for his education, conducting marriage of poor women" so on and so forth. May be he is rich enough to cater to those needs besides spending for his own only daughter.

3. The one day spending on deserts or give aways is not going to help educate a child for life long. The children of slums, are so used to such life styles, that even if you want them to grow in a better environment or study hard will never be their forte. Secondly identifying such help is difficult. There are NGOs and agencies besides Government who should protect them.

4. After all, if one can spend for some unknown under the cover of noble causes, what is wrong if he spends for his own family. Family always comes first.

5. When you attend other friends' and family's weddings, you should also reciprocate the hospitality. What better occasion than their own children's weddings can be?

6. By offering bangles and pop corns the expenditure is not shooting up.

7. The guests have to be taken care and given a warm welcome by the hosts either at home or at a marriage / get-to-gethers. It is a customary act... Isn't it? So providing them rooms/shelters is necessary.

Afterall, weddings are the only time that we meet all our family members under one roof and it should be a moment of joy as these moments happen only once for the bride and the groom.

If the richest nation US of A, cutting on spending, I hope you watched the OSCAR Red Carpet and the Vanity Fair wherein the stars portrayed nothing less than about half-a-million on their Gowns only? No account of the Swaroski crystals and diamond sequences of course......

Sorry not to offend you or your views. It is my opinion only......... So it is individuals choice.

Best Regards
Shanti

 

Dear Swethakalyanee,

Nice thoughts. Yes to an extent true. But today's world is full of individual preferences.
Just half a century it was royal pomp and grandeur. But with increasing opportunities people are having large incomes and smaller families. When there were 5 children in a family it was difficult to arrange marriages in such grand way, but with one child or at the most 2 children such occasions happen in a lifetime. With both parents working, income to spend is more. So such lavish weddings.
But one thing we should be concerned is they dont do it on credit and spiral into the debt trap.

Secondly to some extent people with no such resources may imitate and make their life miserable.

Third in some case if its only child, people are not asking dowry and the bride's parents conduct marriage in a grand way.

This is one side of the story.

Now coming to society, poverty , yes it is a matter of concern for all of us. I work for an NGO of my friend wherein in any of our friends circle if a birthbay, marriage or any function happens we contribute a percentage of it to the NGO for the girls education.
Its all the matter of statistics, how much we earn and what proportion goes to charity.
May be these people are more generous and their contribution to charity is more than many around.

Above all, every person has the right to spend his hard earned earnings as long as it is not an impediment to others, unlike our leaders, greedy politicians who can use people's money for getting their son's, daughter's marriages at the cost of State exchequer.
These people who swallow the funds allocated to poor kids - hostel fee's , food and old age pensions and still keeping us poor.
Our war should be against such corrupt people who are enjoying everything at the cost of the country.

But you seem to be very sensitive person. For your information, we requested to perform our marriage in a simple way only 150 guests and no dowry and both my parents and inlaws were happy about that.But my younger sister had a grand wedding and reception.

Very good thoughts,
keep blogging, very good to read.

Regards
SeethaHari

 

My dear swetha kalyanee,,
Enjoyed reading the article.Parents look forward to their daughter's wedding.Nothing gives them greater joy than giving their daughter a marriage that will be an occasion to cherish for them and their daughters.So sometimes they go beyond their means to spend a lot.I would like to share with you a personal experience of our family.A known family of ours celebrated their only daughter's wedding.The bridegroom happens to be our relative boy,since he had lost his parents at a young age,he treats us as his parents and we only saw this girl for him and planned the marriage from the boy's side.My husband ,who had the privelege of getting his younger sisters married, knows the difficulties the bride's side faces conducting the marriage.So he told the girl's father not to observe any formalities and not to spend money lavishly.

He said,"I will feel hurt if you have to take loans for conducting your daughter's marriage.Let us have a simple marriage.On our side we have absolutely no expectations at all"The girl's father nodded his head.The marriage went off well.The girl's parents gave a grand wedding.We couldnot do anything about it.After an year when the girl's parents moved into a rented house,we came to know that they sold their house in order to give a grand wedding to their daughter.The girl's father said,"Iam happy that I gave my daughter a grand wedding.This is dream come true for me.I have no regrets at all.I may save money and be able to buy a house in future, but the joy of giving your daughter the type of marriage that you want to give, comes only once in your life time."We were stunned.

I think that the girls and the boys side should take efforts to avoid wastage,wastage of food.If I elaborate ,you will get very irritated my friend ,as it is I have written a lengthy fb.Sorry to have tested your patience.

love
mithila kannan

 

i totally agree with u madam this evening i attended a reception where there was lavish spending there were only 200 guests but the hall hired could accomodate 1200 and costs about 1 lakh per day. i think this money could be more well spent at least the newly weds can start their life more comfortably with this money. i only wish there was some limit to how much we could spend on weddings. we can also have some social responsibilities like companies which have corporate social responsibility,:idea

 

Dear Swetha,
Lovely topic. Being a parent and having a son of marriageable age, my view is I wouldn't want to borrow and do a lavish wedding. Yet wedding is once ina life time, so we tend to become bit lavish.
I must admit influence of media like movies have affected a lot of people. Today even s.indians have sangeet nights.
Again it is individual opinion, i would prefer to use my money for nobler causes , yet treat my guest with love and affection and lavish some small gifts on them.
Jaya

 

Hi Swetha.

I read your post and the comments for it. It is so interesting.

But, I agree with you. We need not spend too much on wedding. But it has become a status symbol now. One argument on their side - marriage is a one time affair. let us enjoy it.

But as in the comments, one person spending is another person gain.

We can reduce the expenses and can use it for noble purpose.


Andal

 

Great post and very well said, Swathi! I concur with you on most points. But I beg to slightly disagree with this point you raised:

"People / Guests might be wonder struck and might appreciate the bride’s dad which might make him elated! And then? I couldn’t think of any other valid reason. These grand weddings are, I feel, might be nothing more than a mere act of pride."

Need not always be the case. A lot of times, it is simply forced upon the bride's dad. Even if the bride and family prefer a simple wedding sans all the unwanted expenses and luxury, the mounting pressure from the groom's side for a grand celebration for their (only/ one of many) son's wedding forces the bride's family to rather reluctantly agree to a wedding on a grander scale. And in most cases, when forced, the bride's family accedes, simply because they do not want to loose a good alliance (family-wise, character-wise) for their daughter on account of seemingly 'insignificant' issues like a lavish wedding, etc. In my opinion, if we deviate slightly from tradition and establish/ enforce that both the bride and the groom partake equal responsibility for the wedding preparations (most importantly, from a monetary perspective), a LOT of these lavish, unwanted extravagances would simply disappear! Why? Because for every mindless 'demand' thrown in by Mr. Groom's family and Co., the dent is going to be felt equally in their pockets as well

 

Dear Divs.... I have a different opinion than yours. In the modern time, the "Demands of Mr. Groom's family" are thrown away by girls who disagree to marriage such people. Now when the ladies are also empowered with education & employment, most of them doesnot even look into such proposals.. Ladies have become bold enough to stand against such demands and refuse the proposals...