Luxury wedding - Part 3: How a signature perfume can make, or break, the experience

Bollywood Actress Sonam Kapoor with her husband Anand Ahuja during their wedding reception in Mumbai in 2018. Sonam Kapoor Ahuja chose a blend of Oud & Bergamot and Peony & Blush Suede as the scents for her wedding. (Photo: PTI)

Kate Middleton chose a misty floral fragrance to scent her wedding, while Meghan Markle plumped for a fresh citrusy perfume with marine notes. Sonam Kapoor sought out a blend of Oud & Bergamot (the groom's pick) and Peony & Blush Suede (the bride's favourites) as the scents for her wedding—these were sprayed in the interior spaces where functions were hosted, they were in the perfumed linen and candles, and they were the fragrances that the couple wore.

“The memory of the fragrance was among the several moments that the guests walked away with. The trend of creating a signature scent for your guests began in Paris, I think,” says Sonam.

The success of many-a-luxury wedding has hinged on the scent of a wedding, which rounds off the entire experience. And yet, the role of perfumers is a closely guarded secret between wedding planners and their high-profile clients.

Scenting contemporary Indian weddings

For Indians, the association of fragrance with love, romance, and weddings is an old game. Ruchi Vaish, founder and creative director of In the Know – Fragrance Design, says India has a 5,000-year-old code of beauty, and the art of perfuming a space is part of that code.

“Kama, the Hindu god of erotic love, carried a pointed gode (blessing or boon) called Kamakusha, and he is said to shoot arrows to excite mutual passion. The arrows in his arsenal are said to be tipped with one of his five favourite flowers: Tuberose, jasmine, mango, saffron and Champa, each of which has a strong scent. They are meant to preside, figuratively, over one of the five senses.”

Ruchi Vaish

Scenting contemporary weddings involves so much more than a spritz on the bride’s neck and wrists, or on a groom’s jacket. From the flowers the couple choose to the scent that pervades the wedding—and all the other ceremonies that precede it—it is a finely tuned, meticulously detailed effort that requires months of planning.

A couple of years ago, designer Varun Bahl used rose as a primary fragrance at FDCI chief Sunil Sethi’s daughter’s wedding. The gifting options, welcome kits, the flowers—it was all roses.

Wedding planner Neeta Raheja has also worked with brands such as Forest Essentials to buy fragrances in bulk and use them as mist across the venue, as gifting options for guests and in welcome kits.

One of the most impactful ways of adding fragrance to a wedding venue is by using a dry air diffuser box, which helps in creating a strong association between the scent and the wedding.

Working with Indian and global perfumers

Bespoke fragrances are the Holy Grail of beautiful weddings. Indian wedding planners work with perfumeries and fragrance brands to create their signature scents.

Vaish says, “Like micro-brewery, micro-perfumery is very much on trend. We understand that scent is closely related to memory and a bespoke wedding fragrance is like bottling the memory of that special day. We have also bottled signature wedding fragrances for clients and their loved ones. Years later, you’ll still have a bottled memory, a single sniff of which can transport you back in time. Customisation is the norm; it can be seen in various aspects of the perfume-making process—the bottle can be engraved, the packaging is designed to match the décor, and the perfume is selected by the bride and groom together.”

The process of creating a distinct fragrance can take anywhere from three months to almost a year, depending on how fast a master perfumer works. “The challenge lies in translating a client’s olfactory memories to blends of flowers, spices and oils,” says fragrance designer Nidhi Arania, who works with weddings in cities such as Kolkata and Delhi. “To create a scent profile, we don’t just use flowers; essential oils and spices play an equally important role.”

While traditional fragrances such as mogra and rose are popular, Vaish says a fragrance is very personal. “If I had to create something traditional, I would use tuberose, jasmine, mango, saffron, and Champa and then add a bit of fun with hints of henna, marigold and sandalwood. That would be an Indian wedding in a bottle! If I was to create something on-trend, it would have oud, patchouli, maybe leather, since we are becoming so experimental.”

From Maison Kurkdijian

Indian wedding planners also work with global perfumery brands to create scent profiles for weddings.

One of the favourites with India’s rich and famous is Floris, a bespoke fragrance studio from London. Established in 1730, it was the ‘appointed perfumer’ to the Queen of England, the late Elizabeth II. There is also Maison Francis Kurkdijian, which creates fragrances for brands such as Lanvin and Jean Paul Gaultier. Kurkdijian says his fragrance studio recently designed a special one using mogra and lavender flowers for a wedding in Rajasthan. He has created scented fans and perfumed a swimming pool with a fresh citrus scent for weddings.

At Maison Francis Kurkdjian, prices start at €15,000, depending on the ingredients used. “Some examples of super-expensive ingredients include agarwood or oud, a dark aromatic resin or sap secreted from Aquilaria and Gyrinops trees in South Asia or osmanthus, a rare flower that blooms once a year in some parts of Asia,” says Kurkdjian.

Guerlain, the Parisian fragrance brand, often falls back on the citrus-floral scent created by its founder Pierre Francois-Pascal Guerlain in 1853, for French Emperor Napoleon III’s bride, Eugénie de Montijo, for wedding fragrances.

At Guerlain’s opulent flagship store on Champs Elysees, the process of creating a bespoke fragrance starts with a two-hour consultation with the perfume and fragrance development team. The client or the wedding planner then meets Thierry Wasser, Guerlain’s Swiss master perfumer, to refine the chosen scent.

Much like couture, it would take many sittings to create a signature scent for a wedding. Among the new fragrances that Guerlain has created is Le Bouquet de la Mariée, a tailor-made floral fragrance designed exclusively for weddings. Inspired by orange blossom, the delicious scent includes notes of sweet almond, rose, angelica seeds, vanilla and pink peppercorn.

Some wedding planners in India have also used British perfumer Jo Malone’s ‘Scent Your Wedding’ service to create bespoke fragrance profiles. Céline Roux, head of fragrance development, says, “I often ask the bride and groom what their scent memories are and work with them accordingly. Having a bespoke fragrance for your wedding links your memories and your emotions to a single scent, or a combination of scents. Your scent profile will help you remember not just how beautiful your wedding looked, but how you felt on the day.”

Among the brand’s offerings are European scents such as the citrus-floral notes of Orange Blossom, which was chosen by Kate Middleton when she married Prince William; and other classics such as Peony and Blush Suede, English Pear and Freesia, and Lime Basil and Mandarin. Roux’s suggestions are to use scents that can blend into the background of the wedding. “Anything a little bit fruity, citrusy or zesty will complement the meal at your reception without clashing.”

Indian scent profiles

In India, beauty and skincare brands such as Forest Essentials, Good Earth and Kama Ayurveda, as well as perfumeries such as Bombay Perfumery collaborate with wedding planners to create scent profiles.

Forest Essentials offers a range of mists, oils, and scents as part of their wedding collection, many of which can be bought in bulk. Merdana, a floral perfumed oil, is cold-pressed and blended with pure essential oil, each with its unique properties. Then there are oils created by blending rose petals, khus, and lighter oils, which add freshness to a summer wedding.

Among the mists that Forest Essentials creates as part of its scent portfolio is Iced Pomegranate with Fresh Kerala Lime, which is refreshing and rehydrating; Nargis, from the eponymous flower, which blooms for a few months in the high altitudes in India and has a soft floral scent, besides, of course, mogra, jasmine and rose.

Tejveen Kaur, co-founder and creative director of T’zires, a boutique wedding planning company, says planners buy in bulk from Forest Essentials. “For one wedding I remember welcoming guests with roses at the airport and to complement that, we placed Forest Essentials’ Rose Mist in their rooms. The fragrance theme was rose.”

The desi brand also has a range of solid perfumes, which, with their rich creamy base, offer a highly aromatic alternative to their liquid counterparts and are perfect for weddings when you need the scent to last for a very long time.

This is part 3 in the How the Big Fat Indian wedding got fatter series. Also read: How the Big Fat Indian Wedding got fatter and Explainer: How to plan your OTT destination wedding right