When Louise Brew turned 60 this November, she treated herself to something unusual – gatecrashing an Indian wedding. Except she didn’t exactly sneak in. The Australian expat, who works as a music teacher at an international school in Dubai, actually paid to attend one.
After years of hearing friends rave about the extravagance of Indian weddings – their colour, drama, music and marathon celebrations – the mother-of-two decided it was finally her turn.
So she packed a regal sari and opulent jewellery and flew to Jaipur. There, she got her hair and make-up done, dressed to the nines and blended into the festivities of a couple she didn’t know. Guests, intrigued by her presence, stopped her for chats and selfies.
"I wanted to go to an Indian wedding for a long time," Brew tells The National. "I have lived in Australia and now in the UAE, and everybody speaks favourably about the wonderful time they had at an Indian wedding.
"It was not just the wedding, I was actually celebrating my 60th birthday. I took considerable time choosing my sari, finally wearing jewellery I never had the occasion to use. Everybody was fascinated to see us – a stream of people came up to us and talked to us. I came clean and told them that we paid for the experience and they were surprised. But it was six hours of pure entertainment."
Big fat weddings
Brew is part of a growing tribe of foreigners now paying to attend Indian weddings purely for the cultural spectacle. While Western weddings are often intimate affairs, Indian weddings are community carnivals with rituals, music, elaborate meals and guest lists that sometimes stretch into an entire village.
The scale has only grown in recent years, helped by shows such as Prime Video's Made in Heaven and, more recently, over-the-top nuptials of India’s ultra-rich including the Ambani wedding that was attended by Kim Kardashian and featured a performance by Rihanna.
“It was the Ambani wedding... which was out of this world. It was a completely new concept and many found it distasteful, but if you look at Indian weddings, they are not intimate, there is razzmatazz, besides the spiritual side. They are larger-than-life and I got what I wanted which was a great experience,” Brew says.
“I learnt so much about traditions and rituals even though I didn’t fully understand. Even when the groom got on the horse, there was a ritual. It was fascinating.”
The ticketed Indian wedding concept is the brainchild of Orsi Parkanyi, 43, who is Hungarian-Australian, but lives in Oslo. She connects travellers with Indian couples through Join My Wedding, a start-up she co-founded in 2016.
Her idea sprang from missing friends’ weddings when she was a student in Australia.
“I had the idea of how cool it would be to attend any wedding because you need an invitation,” she says.
With many Indian friends and their stories of spectacular weddings, she chose India as the test market.
“People knew about the weddings from movies and Bollywood, but didn’t have access. And Indian couples are very happy to host people.”
Through Facebook groups, friends and influencers, her initiative took off. So far, she has arranged for 500 tourists from the US, Europe, Australia and the UAE to attend weddings.
Guests pay $150 for a day or $250 for several days, with more than 60 per cent of that going to the couple. Travel and accommodation are not included, but guests get to savour multi-course Indian meals and pose with the couple.
After a dip during the Covid-19 pandemic, the platform surged again thanks to social media buzz. Today, 6,000 weddings are listed, and Parkanyi expects that number to hit 10,000 this wedding season, which usually starts in November and goes on until February.
Cultural immersion
For travellers such as Dutch-Brazilian Bruno, 36, who is on a two-year global sabbatical, attending an Indian wedding was the ultimate cultural deep-dive.
Bruno, who uses only one name, had already taken sushi-making classes in Japan and singing lessons in South Africa. An Indian wedding felt like the next adventure, he says. Since no friends in India were getting married, he paid to attend a two-day celebration in Kerala last March.
“At first, I wondered if I should pay, ideally I would have liked to be invited, but I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” he said. “In Brazil, weddings are mostly Christian and small ceremonies, but in India, there are many hours of ceremonies and eating with family and friends and it is also extravagant in terms of clothes.
“I was positively shocked by the colour. I was welcomed and made friends and danced with the couple. They were very warm with me."
Cashing in
Indian couples, long accustomed to hosting more than 1,000 guests with ease, are embracing this new cross-cultural curiosity and capitalising on the popularity of weddings.
Isha Sharma and her fiance, Girendra Singh, both 29 from Jaipur, who are set to tie the knot on December 12, signed up with Join My Wedding three months ago to invite foreigners to experience their wedding that will be celebrated over five days.
“My parents are spending four million rupees on the wedding. The wedding alone is going to be attended by 1,500 people, so we thought why not extend our invitations and have people from across borders," says Isha. "Two guests from Europe have signed up so far."
Even among Indians, who are known to be social and welcoming, many can find taking money for letting people attend weddings distasteful. But Sharma says getting paid is an additional perk besides giving access to travellers to take a peek into the wedding festivities.
"I like the idea that other people can experience our culture, traditions and functions. They can enjoy the food and the functions," she says. "Indian weddings are colourful, with so many dishes, dance and laughter. I guess they will get to experience something new and interesting."
