Mumbai: Reeta Gupta’s friend who is getting married next week is in a quandary. For the four-day wedding, she has 18 occasions lined up and every function calls for gifting a “tikka” or a cash gift to close family members.
“Marwaris have large close-knit families and every cover means a cash gift of around Rs 51,000 per person and every occasion involves giving such cash gifts to at least 35 people per function. This decision has put a spanner in the wheel. The invites have been dispatched and it is not possible to call off the wedding. All these envelopes have been prepared and kept ready for the wedding. But this gift will amount to nothing now,” said Gupta.
Her friend is not the only one whose family is palpitating. Another couple in Mumbai tying the knot in December is worried that several bills need to be paid and caterers and alcohol providers only accept cash. “Several wedding halls also demand rent partially in cash,” said the bride-to-be. In Rajasthan, many couples have postponed their weddings.
The scrapping of notes with 500 and 1000 rupee notes as legal tender, has left several to-be-wed couples in a bind, said a wedding planner. While one planner said a wedding in a Mumbai gymkhana later this week has been postponed now, those scheduled next week are waiting to see how things pan out, The Times of India reported.
Aloha Mehta, co-founder of Elite Wedding Planner said while none of her planned weddings have been cancelled just yet and there is a destination wedding scheduled at a resort in Anand, Gujarat next Monday, of a Mumbai-based couple, it has caused a “a lot of chaos and panic”. She said, “Of course, payments have become a concern. During the wedding season, people take out a lot of money to pay small vendors like local musicians, florists and mehendi artists, puppeteers and other entertainment artists and also some of the travel expenses, as well as gift envelopes for shagun. Now, with a limit put on withdrawal it will become a further problem.”
Aditya Motwane, director, Motwane Entertainment and Weddings, said his business, which is mostly in destination weddings with clients based as far and wide as in Dubai, Lagos, New York and London, is not affected. But small weddings in the country may be hit, he said. “Just as other businesses, the wedding business too will take a bit of a hit in the current scenario.”