Delhi and December saw most number of weddings in 2020 amid COVID-19 pandemic: Report

The biggest wedding organised by Weddingz.in was worth Rs 32 lakh with a guest list of 300 people at Radisson Blu in Udaipur.

For the wedding industry, 2020 was an unusual year as couples tied the knot virtually, number of guests saw a sharp drop, and destination weddings got a new definition in times of COVID-19.

Sharing more interesting trends and data, OYO's Weddingz.in in a recently released report titled 'Wedding Wows' revealed that Delhi saw most number of weddings last year, followed by Mumbai, Pune, Lucknow, and Kolkata.

However, when it comes to virtual weddings, it was Mumbai that was the top city followed by Delhi, and Ahmedabad. 

Biggest virtual wedding happened in Mumbai with 50 guests joining the wedding virtually and 50 guests attending the wedding in person in August last year.

Due to smaller weddings, the average wedding spend came down to approximately Rs 1.7 lakh in August from Rs 2.8 lakh in 2019 during the same period.

But in December, the average spend reached pre-COVID levels with couples spending close to Rs 2.4 lakh on a wedding and this is despite the drop in number of guests.

The biggest wedding organised by Weddingz.in was worth Rs 32 lakh with a guest list of 300 people at Radisson Blu in Udaipur.

The average guest list at a wedding in 2020 was 150, depending on government guidelines across states, compared to more than 250 guests in 2019.

Plus, over 60 percent of total weddings held between the months of June and September saw less than 50 people and 8 percent of weddings had 25 people or less.

The report further shared that weddings in 2020 were concentrated on ‘hot dates’ with nearly 53 percent weddings taking place across the country on the top 10 dates in November and December, compared to 30 percent last year during the same period.

In the post-unlock world, November 30 was the most popular day with 383 couples tying the knot on that day.
“Recovering from a complete standstill due to the lockdown to reaching 75-80 percent of pre-COVID level demand towards the end of 2020, the wedding industry has learnt and adapted to newer ways to sustain operations," said Sandeep Lodha, CEO, OYO’s Weddingz.in.

Weddingz.in last year organised 15.5 thousand weddings across India as compared to 27,000 weddings in 2019. The company saw first prominent green shoots across the country during the festive period. Now, December 2020 accounts for 40 percent of weddings since unlocking in June 2020.

"We expect the wedding industry to reach 35 percent of pre-COVID levels in 2021 if there are further relaxations on guest list limitations which will increase the scale of weddings and number of events per wedding," added Lodha.