Kolkata weddings hit Covid roadblock again – Times of India

Indranil Banerjee, a city-based techie, was to tie the knot with Shilpita Mukherjee, an artist, on January 22. But now, after the Bengal government announced the new Covid-related restrictions on Sunday, he is changing wedding plans in a hurry. “As we can’t invite more than 50 people now, we have pushed back our social wedding, which has a long guest list. Shilpita and I will register our marriage in the third week of January with only our immediate family members in attendance. The date is yet to be fixed, as the venue is now in a containment zone,” Indranil told us.

RESTRICTION ON GUESTS A DETERRENT

Most soon-to-be-wed couples in the city and their families are facing the same conundrum, with the 50-guest restriction hitting their wedding plans the hardest.
Chahat Ahluwalia and Raghav Kapur, who were all set to travel to Kashmir for a destination wedding later this week and then host a reception in Kolkata on January 15, are now planning to push the big day to sometime in late March. “I am sure God has better plans for my daughter,” said Chahat’s mother and social worker Gurvir Ahluwalia. “I want all my friends around me when my daughter gets married, so we’d rather host it later than have a smaller wedding,” she added.
On the other hand, actress Chitrangada Satarupa, who had decided to postpone her January 9 wedding after testing positive for Covid-19 in December-end is, in a way, feeling relieved. “I want my wedding to be an occasion that our friends and family can enjoy to the fullest. I want their blessings and participation. Even if I hadn’t tested positive, I wouldn’t have gone ahead with the 50-guest restriction in place. We are now planning to host the wedding later this year with full gusto. We have pushed back booking dates relating to the venue, catering and other services,” Chitrangada told us, adding that they have no plans to change the venue or the service providers.
Chahat’s family, too, has merely postponed the wedding. “The ceremonies were supposed to take place in Jammu and Kashmir between January 6 and 8. We had a booking of approximately 150 people. Now, we’ve had to postpone all the bookings. We’ll decide the date again after checking the situation,” Gurvir told us.

SERVICE PROVIDERS TAKE A DIRECT HIT

A direct outcome of the fast changing plans is cancellation of catering orders, banquets, flower services etc. Even the families who are going ahead with weddings are now busy revising guest lists. And all this is hitting the service providers hard.
S Ramani from a city-based catering firm said, “This sudden announcement has hit the people who are getting married as well as us pretty hard. People who had invited 300-500 guests are now reducing it to 50. All sangeet, mehendi events are being cancelled. In fact, many are postponing the weddings. Catering to just 50 people will be a loss-making proposition for us.”
Wedding planner Bhavna Hemani rued the fact that the curbs came at a time when business had just begun to gather steam. “This announcement came as a jolt to everyone. We have been trying to overcome the losses we incurred in the past two years and now this. People are still in a dilemma. Those who are going ahead with the weddings are reducing the guest list to 50. Advance payments to the artistes were all done and now we are calling them up to cancel. It’s very unfortunate,” she said.
Rongon Neogi, who runs a city-based catering service, had a similar view. “From last year, the number of wedding attendees had started going up to around 300-400. And now, it has again been cut down to 50. After the lull, our industry had just started to make up for the losses incurred during the lockdown and after it. The new guidelines have pushed us back to square one,” he said.