Description
Pre-wedding videos can sometimes cost more than the honeymoon. The couple, dressed in Indian bridal attire, stand knee-deep in a lake, shoulders swaying to a Bollywood song. Then the groom collides with his fiancée, loses his balance and falls into the water, decorations and all. It was not an act. The video, shot before the couple's wedding and intended to evoke their romance, was an epic flop, at least at first. The clip then became an Instagram sensation, racking up 13 million views.
“People started to recognize us at gatherings, social gatherings, other weddings,” says Jyothi Lakshmi, the 26-year-old bride. "The fall was worth it."
A post shared by WhiteOwl Weddings™ (@whiteowlweddingsind)
Middle-class India has a new obsession: pre-wedding videos. They are extravagantly designed and choreographed, with music, dance routines, and often movie-style sets. They can cost more than the honeymoon. Many exude romance, while others turn into disasters. Some are going viral on social media.
“No one wants to watch hour-long wedding videos of priests singing and the couple doing saat pheras, seven circles around the holy fire,” said Gautam Swaroop, chief executive of Weddingz, a wedding services platform. "These days, couples want to show their cool side."
India's wedding industry is gigantic, with three million weddings in the season ending March this year and annual turnover of around $130 billion, according to Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and CEO of Matrimony.com, India's largest online matchmaker. Many are week-long affairs with rituals, glitzy regalia, diamond jewelry, dancing, and festivities.
Some old habits are giving way to new ones in the digital age. Pre-wedding shots have grown in popularity as the young and liberal country meets a love for online videos. These clips appear on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and local platforms like Sharechat.
Many videos push the boundaries of creativity to stand out. In one, a boyfriend spins his girlfriend around in a sprawling dump, sending her hair, sari and bits of trash flying as a drone captures the action. In another, a motorcycle couple flies over a truck in a thriller-style chase scene. Couples rotate everywhere: in public parks, in front of monuments, as well as inside temples and gymnasiums.
it goes off before marriage: i get this pic.twitter.com/Ynwf7Kxr6a
Rajesh Dembla, a wedding photographer, saw the opportunity looming and launched Sets in the City, a 7.5-acre plot in suburban Mumbai with 50 mock locations, including Venetian canals and Victorian cathedrals. Offering professional makeup artists, eye-catching outfits, and lighting experts for up to $1,000 for a one-day session. Their rooms are booked throughout the season.
Dheeraj Vijayan, who runs a company called White Owl Weddings that produces videos for such ceremonies, said photographers and choreographers were under pressure to come up with new ideas. Many couples want to be "famous for a day," she said.
Hello wedding photographers. Can you relax? Wtf is this pic.twitter.com/q7Qt6Dt326
A photographer from the southern city of Thrissur hung upside down from a tree to get an original perspective on the soon-to-be couple. He was quickly nicknamed "vavval", or the bat, on the internet.
Param Patil, 32, a photographer living in Sholapur, recently filmed a video in which the couple performed a mock home invasion. An intruder, a stranger, breaks into the house and pushes the groom out of frame, before the couple is happily reunited.
Although it is mostly fun and fun, it is still India. Couples want to keep passionate scenes out of the sight of traditional parents.
"A recent couple wanted a hot video for their own circles and another boy-girl love story to share with the extended family," Patil said. But the young couple arrived at their pre-wedding photo shoot with eight family members, ending any hope of flirtation or passion. "The video was a flop," Patil said.
