Beat of a Different Drummer

The Wedding Planner  

Another big day with a million things to do. Sonia Bhambhani, tall and pretty, checklist in hand, zips about the glittering hall examining the décor. Then, having lined up the band and inspected its members, she makes sure the figurines atop the tall wedding cake are perfectly placed. Every tiny detail is important for 22-year-old Sonia, although she is neither a relative nor even friend of the bride. She’s the wedding planner.
“Everything must be coordinated to be at the right time in the right place,” she explains, as she dashes off to the kitchen. She returns minutes later to talk to the families of the bride and the groom, the vendors, the waiters.
Then… it’s a blast.

Five hours after she arrived here, and another joyous, smooth-flowing, wedding done—phew!—Sonia takes a chair and unwinds with a soft drink. “I hope I’ve surpassed the expectations of both families,” she says to me.
An Indian wedding has become a complex affair, challenging and overwhelming. “Parents just don’t have the time to plan dream weddings for their kids. That’s where I step in.”
Sonia, a bachelor of management studies (BMS) graduate, stepped in two years ago after working briefly at a PR firm. She’d even sat for the MBA common admission test. But she felt it wasn’t quite right for her.
The idea of wedding planning struck her as an epiphany while she was preparing for the test. She did a cost-benefit analysis, just like she’d learnt to do in her BMS class, and found that the investment required to set up what she calls a “one-shop wedding shop” was surprisingly low, and that her own savings of about `1 lakh were enough to start out. “When my parents learnt of my wedding planner plans,” Sonia giggles, “they thought it was another of my crazy ideas.”

Yet it was that spirit of being her own boss that made her choose BMS for her graduation. And her stint in PR had left her with many contacts. “I knew people who were already into the wedding business,” she recalls. “They gave me the confidence to take the plunge.” She got her first job-contract through a friend and quickly realized that although wedding planning as a career looked like glamour, fun and big money, it really was all hard work.

Despite the lack of formal training in her chosen profession, Sonia says that every day on the job taught her to network, build contacts and grow. The fee that the wedding planner charges depends on the scale of the ceremonies and the budget assigned. But that’s not so important for Sonia. “I don’t restrict myself to high-profile weddings,” she explains. “The key is to strive to create something that reflects the style of my
clientele, be it the invitation cards or the catering.”
Big fat Indian wedding or not, it’s an immense responsibility that she takes on every time. “I’m accountable for the most important day in someone’s life,” she sighs.
“What about your own wedding?” I ask her. “Who will plan that?”
Sonia smiles warmly. “I’ll let my family do that. It’ll be a quiet, simple affair, with just those I love most.”   >>