New Delhi, Aug 03: The entrance has small doors forcing anyone who wants to get in to bend. Visitors enter a long tunnel ahead and try to stay clear of the water that trickles down, the dry ice and stones. And once you are in, there is no escape. The entire area is enclosed by a boundary wall with watch towers, searchlights scanning the area and guards in uniforms. A scene from Alcatraz prison? No, just an 'End of Freedom' bachelor party in a Delhi farmhouse. The bar is behind steel bars. Giant keys, handcuffs and whistles are suspended from trees in the compound. Some of the party-hoppers are even in prison attire.
From the exotic to the whacky, marriage celebrations are being tailor-made for those with exotic preferences, and the money. "I've recreated Venice by constructing a facade of the Ca'de'Oro palace along with balcony, Venetian masks, bollards, bridges, lamposts and gondolas; I've also done
Topkapi palaces of Turkey, thakur's havelis and the Sheesh Mahal complete with the mirror effect," says Geeta Samuel, wedding planner.
And couples are flocking to India — the new wedding destination — to exchange their I dos. Wedding planners see this as a fall-out of the international success of Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding. Olga and Kanth have come all the way from Germany with around 30 friends for a Hindu wedding near the ultimate monument to love — the Taj Mahal on a full moon night.
Olga wears a red lehanga, bangles and sindoor for the ceremony. After the rituals at Mughal Sheraton, the couple walk down to the Taj to get clicked. "We have eternalised our love," they echo. The Shahjahan-Mumtaz Mahal love knot cost them Rs 30 lakh. On November 18, Ann Marie and Ross from Seattle will tie the knot at Birla Mandir. They will fly in 75 of their close friends. "I'm planning a traditional wedding, there's going to be jaimala, shenai, mehandi with Hindu rituals. Ann's been dreaming of this exotic wedding," says Samuel. The ultimate weddingland in India is Jagmandir in Udaipur. Six grand weddings are being slotted for this August. Recently, US millionaire Narpat Bhandari's son Rick married Donna there. It was a royal wedding with mashals, elephants, camels. Almost 150 people were flown in. "For every wedding we use 500 kgs of flowers. The cost of a three-day wedding celebration with 170 guests can be anything from Rs 40 to 70 lakhs," says Vipul Verdia of HRH hotels, Udaipur. Indians too are catching on to the idea of a foreign 'weddingmoon'. They're tying the knot in: Thailand's Banyan Tree, Phuket which offers Eternity and Unity wedding packages, and Maldives for Robinson Crusoe island weddings.
Singapore-based Indian Ojas Doshi flew in 150 guests to Bali for a three-day reception after his wedding in Mumbai. Close friend Harmeet Bajaj says, "After we landed in Bali, every moment was planned. We celebrated in a private beach, wore fancy sarongs, kurtas and skirts. The cuisine was Balinese. After dinner, we moved to the bar. It was a wedding to remember, very stylish."