Navigating the experience of a destination wedding

October 18th marked World Luxury Day. A significant factor influencing luxury is associated with weddings. The Wedding Wire Survey India Report indicates that the $100-billion Indian wedding industry ranks as the second largest globally, following the United States. 

The average guest size is 326, with 59 per cent of couples opting for a large wedding. Sixty-seven per cent of couples opt for a venue near their home, while 19 per cent select a destination venue.

Fostering consumer experiences during Indian wedding celebrations can ignite a passion in brands to become wedding allies, tapping into a significant market opportunity. 

(This story relates to destination beach weddings yet is applicable in varying degrees across weddings.)

The grand Indian wedding goes to the beach

The beach wedding is a cherished and beloved destination, especially for those coming from places far removed from the coastal lifestyle. The beach wedding is a high tide of fun, festivity, and frolic. Scenes from it give a breezy glimpse of the new wedding vibe.

Airport chic before resort chic

The straw hat, batik shirt, maxi dress, and especially the shoes at the airport convey everything. Canvas shoes, strappy low-heeled sandals, comfortable floaters, vibrant fit flops, neon platforms. The wedding guests adorned in them are not merely ‘dressed to kill’ but adhere to a particular dress code.

Singing and dancing on the beach

The celebratory atmosphere is uplifted with the ocean breeze. Colourful flower decorations sway from trees; the palms seem to dance. Folks dive into colourful ceremonies.

Hell for feet

Activities like dancing and taking group selfies at the ceremonies are not for the faint-hearted, especially near the beach. At the end of every function is a familiar sight. Ladies are limping! They are a vision of glamorous bling minus shoes. Walking back from functions—holding shoes in their hands. Or collapsing midway in chairs with feet stretched out.

Shoe chronicles at the breakfast buffet

The next day the ladies swap urgent shoe diaries over masala chai, such as: 

“Haw my feet” (berating poor choices)
“Now I only wear crystal flats, that is why” (sharing hard lessons)
“Can you lend me a pair of bronze flats” (exchanging options)
“I am ditching my heels for tonight” (making new resolutions)
“Thanks for your tip—I will get those soon as I get home, we have ten wedding to go to this winter!” (drawing up plans)  

Edit the steal of the groom’s shoes

An informal, fun ritual conducted by the bride's sisters and friends—to do with stealing the groom’s shoes—inevitably gets edited. The otherwise enthusiastic ladies hardly remember to follow through on this particular ritual to do with shoes. They may be too busy surviving their own footwear adventures.

(Above all, each one has grudging admiration for anyone who has found his or her feet at a destination wedding!)
 

Prompts for brands: 

Master your style quotient: 

Getting ‘Tip Top’ cued a familiar emphasis on clothes, hair, and jewels. Yet, new age wedding contexts surface a desire for more guidance—in foot wear, style, comfort, wellness, etc. Rather than letting people resort to swapping notes in emergencies, brands can help proactively.
 
Brands can provide the best possible professional guidance on what shoes to wear, when, how, with what and not, and buy from where exactly. Segmented comprehensively, collaboratively with grooming, apparel, and accessories: regular, premium, bespoke; youthful, mid-age, senior; classic, elegant, edgy; high arch, low arch; wide, narrow, regular; etc.

Master your social code: 

The feedback (pre- and post-weddings) reveals a recurring theme: modern weddings demand a high level of social skills. Hosts and guests alike value memorable, diverse experiences; creating these requires skill, flair, and poise.

Few are experienced hands or innately skilled; many learn through trial and error; they outsource to wedding planners yet experience ‘gaps’. 

Brands can provide allyships, services, and platforms that cascade social savvy. Chapters in a book titled “The Golden Code: Mastering the Art of Social Success” indicate apt topics for honing social savviness: example, ‘being a perfect host, house guest’, ‘how to get over oops moments’, knowing ‘the leisure protocol’, familiarising with savvy travelling, attire, make up, and nutrition. 

Master your sustainable celebration: 

Data reveals that young couples are keen to celebrate responsibly with sustainable, eco-friendly decorations, garments, gifts, food, experiences, and locations to the extent possible. As the varied events embrace ‘themes’, there is enthusiasm as well for a thread of responsibility and sustainability running through them all.

Brands can provide constructive, aspirational, and influential impact via sustainable celebration ecosystems in their category to accelerate this preference.

To sum up: Many people are still finding their feet at modern weddings, literally and figuratively. Brands can serve the opportunities evolving at the pre-wedding, wedding, and post-wedding markets as wedding allies within the world's second-largest wedding industry.

(Our guest author is Shaziya Khan, a brand communication strategist and author of the book "Have Biscut: an ode to sweet everyday moments". She writes for brands to achieve emotional connections rooted in everyday moments.)