Give a designer an inch and he takes over the whole mandap. That, at least, is what is happening this season. Sardar of shaadis J.J. Valaya has tied up with the wedding management company Shaadionline. Raghavendra Rathore is on his way to making a corporate tie-up for wedding planning. Rohit Bal has started an independent wedding company. And Tarun Tahiliani, among the first to go public with designing weddings for friends, continues to take up select offers. This week, he helped design a function by Renu Bhatia to welcome her newly wed son Amit Bhatia and his wife Vanisha, UK-based billionaire L.N. Mittal's daughter, to Delhi. Designer inputs included exclusive table decor and use of muslin to create a magical web-like effect over the Nandiya Gardens, Maurya Sheraton, the venue for the event.

PICTURE SPEAK

JOINING THE BANDWAGON: Valaya (left) and Bal (right) have officially opened wedding management firms

After having spent the past few years distancing themselves from the "shaadi designer" tag and chanting the prêt mantra, top Indian couturiers have now reinstated their claim to the genre. This time with more commercial avenues as a spin-off. Besides the bridal trousseau, the designers will manage the entire wedding, from the invitation and the doli to the menu and mandap. "I am pretty excited," says Bal. Keeping his strong craft-orientation as the base, Bal has created an exclusive print for the shamiana for an upcoming wedding.

While some designers have helped friends with arranging weddings before, they have never turned it into a commercial service. "Wedding planning takes care of the functional part, but there is also the aspect of making a wedding unique and that is where a designer comes in," says Jairaj Gupta, CEO of Shaadionline, the planning company that has roped in Valaya with the launch of the sub-company, Casamenta: A Shaadionline-Valaya venture. The mother company, which does about 100 weddings a year, is hoping to tap the very high-end 5-10 per cent of its clientele, to whom they will position the tie-up as a "super-exclusive" venture. Says Valaya: "I will offer themes that have been built out of the inspirations that come out of the House of Valaya." He adds that designers can bring to event planning "branding and innovative ideas".

PICTURE SPEAK

Tahiliani helped design a function (left) for newly weds Amit and Vanisha Bhatia.

Weddings have always been a big preoccupation mostly with India's rich, but in the past few years mega-events such as the twin Sahara weddings and the wedding of Mittal's daughter have brought ostentatious wedding functions out in the open. "A great deal of money is spent today on flowers, food and decoration," says Vandana Mohan of Wedding Design Company. She adds, "But now, clients are looking for organisers with a creative bent of mind."

Simply put, flashy extravaganzas are out. Style weddings are in. Designers are expected to preside over colour statements, trends and themes and put it all together without anything looking "overdone", a tag that many high-profile weddings in the recent past have got and been criticised for. Says Bal: "I believe that spending of money cannot be a substitute for lack of taste." It is the search for this sensibility that has clients seeking out designer services. Sources say that a top designer would be paid Rs 3 lakh-Rs 5 lakh for one wedding in a market that is estimated to spend upwards of Rs 500 crore on catering and entertainment bills. Designers are mum about the clientele. Bal says most of the wedding planning he has taken up is for NRIs and for "the type of people who don't want it known that the wedding is designed".

BAL'S HOT TIPS

ALL ARE EQUAL: What appalls me is weddings in which some are given better treatment than others. All guests should be treated as equals. NO EXCESSES: Say no to a wedding that is overdone and overly opulent. RIGHT MIX: Mixing of too many types of cuisine looks bad. Maximum of three different cusines are enough. AVOID THEM: Impersonal weddings. Weddings which are like a mela. MISSING POINTS: Performance-based functions are a display of power and they take away attention from the bride and groom.

His company, while being independent, will outsource talent of the likes of set designer Sumant Jaikrishnan (who created sets at the wedding of Shobhana Bhartia's son, among others) and wedding planners like Mohan to execute his ideas. He adds, "I only work for clients whom I want to work with and who have a sensibility similar to mine." Tahiliani, who in the past is said to have designed events for people like Delhi businessman Ashok Kapoor, will "pick and choose" depending on the time he has at hand and his relations with the client. Rathore, meanwhile, says he is in talks with mega retail house Shopper's Stop, which wants to propose Rathore Wedding Design Packages to "golden clientele". While Gupta says this is an aspect of wedding planning "waiting to be tapped" into, there are those in the fashion designing industry who see the movement as significant. Despite the talk of designer prêt, it seems that the Indian designer's real USP remains the wedding market. Avenues for growth seem more optimistic in this sector and the offer of wedding firms vying for tie-ups could be an indicator of this. Says Bal: "I have always believed couture is our strong point and this validates my belief."

However, it is too early to say if designer wedding planners are here to stay. Adding a voice of caution is industry expert Harmeet Bajaj: "For people to spend money on designers, the input will have to be substantial, mere brand value is not enough." They wait to see if that will happen.

RELATED STORIES:

Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Look Again India

Index