Having spent years planning and producing weddings, I have seen the definition of a “luxury wedding” change quite dramatically.
A few years ago, conversations with families would often begin with questions around scale, how many guests, how elaborate the décor, which artists, and how grand the production could be. Increasingly, the first question I hear is: “How do we make this feel like us? To me, that is one of the most interesting shifts taking place in the Indian wedding landscape. Luxury is becoming less about adding more and more about making the right choices. From spectacle to significance
Today, the conversations are different.
Sometimes the most personal detail is something that only 20 people in the room understand. Because that is where much of the experience is created, as planners, we spend an enormous amount of time thinking about these invisible details.
Instead of simply asking, “Which is the best hotel?”, couples are increasingly asking, “Which place feels like us? A wedding does not begin when the baraat arrives or when the couple walks onto the stage. How they are welcomed at the airport. What is waiting for them in their room. How their itinerary is communicated. The details in their welcome hamper. The music playing when they arrive. The food they are served. How easily they can move between venues. Even something as simple as ensuring that an elderly guest is comfortable during a long ceremony can become an important part of the experience. These details may not always make it onto Instagram, but they are often what people remember. And I think that is becoming an important part of modern luxury: effortlessness. The guest should not see the amount of planning behind something. They should simply feel that everything has been thought through. The destination is becoming part of the story I have also noticed a growing preference for venues and destinations that have their own personality. That could mean a boutique property, a private estate, a heritage venue, a beachside destination or a hotel with a strong sense of architecture and place. The destination itself becomes part of the wedding narrative. If you are getting married in Goa, for example, there is little reason to recreate a ballroom wedding from another city. The surroundings can influence the food, colours, music, pace and even the way guests experience the celebrations. Similarly, a heritage property can lend itself to a very different celebration from a contemporary resort. For me, the most successful destination weddings are those where the wedding and the destination do not feel like two separate things. Tradition is not disappearing. It is being reinterpreted. There is also a misconception that personalisation means moving away from tradition. I do not think that is happening. In fact, many couples remain deeply invested in their rituals. They simply want to experience them in a way that feels relevant to them. A traditional ceremony may still remain at the heart of the wedding, but its presentation, setting, music, décor or guest experience can be completely contemporary. We are seeing couples ask questions such as: How can we make this ritual more intimate? How can we explain its significance to guests who may not understand it? How can we preserve the emotion without making the experience feel overly formal? That is where a planner’s role becomes particularly interesting. We are not simply there to execute a ceremony. We are constantly trying to find the balance between heritage and individuality. The best weddings, in my experience, do not abandon tradition. They make tradition feel personal again. Personalisation is moving beyond names and monograms Personalisation is also becoming much more sophisticated. It is no longer simply about putting the couple’s initials on everything. It is about understanding who they are. If a couple loves a particular cuisine, perhaps that becomes part of the menu. If music is important to them, perhaps the entertainment journey is curated around the music they grew up with. If they travel extensively, that may influence the visual language of an event. If they are passionate about art, fashion, food or architecture, those interests can become part of the design vocabulary. And that is perfectly fine. A wedding does not need every detail to be understood by everyone. Some details can simply belong to the couple and the people closest to them. The point is not to personalise everything. It is to personalise what matters. The planner’s role is changing too This evolution has also changed the way I see our role as planners. We are no longer simply coordinating vendors and making sure an event runs on time. A large part of our job is listening. Before we begin designing, we need to understand the couple, how they met, what they enjoy, what they dislike, what their families are like, how they want their guests to feel and, importantly, what they do not want their wedding to become.
For a guest, it begins much earlier, from the moment they receive the invitation.
Because it felt distinctive and personal, they are looking for a celebration that their guests will remember. Because they would rather genuinely interact with the people who are there, some couples are even choosing smaller guest lists. Because it could not have been anybody else’s, the final wedding should ideally look like nobody else’s,.
And a guest who leaves saying, “I felt so taken care of,” may be a more valuable measure of luxury than how many people watched the wedding online. A couple may tell us that they do not want a massive stage, but want the arrival experience to be extraordinary. They may not want a conventional cocktail evening, but instead want to create a night that reflects how they actually spend time with their friends. That is a very different definition of luxury. Increasingly, affluent couples are willing to invest in the details guests actually experience: hospitality, food, entertainment, comfort, transitions between events, personalised moments and the overall flow of the celebration. The question is no longer simply, “What will look spectacular? It is increasingly, “What will make someone feel something? The guest experience has become part of luxury One of the biggest changes I have seen as a planner is the importance being placed on the guest journey. Sometimes a couple will come to us with a Pinterest board full of beautiful references. Our job is not necessarily to replicate those references. It is to understand why they liked them and translate that feeling into something original. That is where experience-led planning comes in. The new luxury is restraint Perhaps the biggest change I see is that luxury is becoming more confident. There is a growing understanding that not every space needs to be filled, every moment needs to be programmed or every event needs to outdo the previous one. Sometimes, leaving something out creates more impact. A beautifully designed dinner with the right people, the right food, the right music and an atmosphere that allows people to actually talk can be more luxurious than an evening overloaded with entertainment. A beautifully executed ritual that allows the family to be present can be more meaningful than a production designed primarily for photographs. A more personal era of Indian luxury weddings Ultimately, I believe the Indian luxury wedding is entering a more personal era. We will continue to see spectacular productions, extraordinary destinations and ambitious celebrations — and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But behind the spectacle, expectations are changing. Couples want their weddings to have a point of view. They want their families represented, their personalities reflected and their guests genuinely considered. Perhaps that is the new language of luxury: not simply giving people more, but creating something that could not have been created for anyone else. That, in my experience, is what makes a wedding truly unforgettable. Pratik Sheth, Founder Spotlight Soirées Looking for trusted parenting advice? Follow TOI Parenting Circle on Instagram for expert guidance, relatable stories, and practical tips delivered every day.
When we sit across the table from couples today, they are not necessarily looking for the biggest wedding they can create.