More than 10 million weddings take place in India every year, and many of them are exaggerated. Not all Indian weddings are a spectacle – the country is huge and the ceremonies are as varied as the religions, castes and communities hosting them. But the spectacular Indian wedding – an expensive combination of Hindu tradition and Bollywood influence – has a fascinating staying power. Through economic turmoil, social reforms, modern technology, and even a pandemic, India’s fat marriage is only getting bigger.

Kira Bindrim, editor-in-chief of Quartz and host of the Quartz Obsession podcast, spoke to journalist Manavi Kapur about India’s thriving wedding industry.

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This interview is lightly edited for clarity and length.

Do Indian weddings largely reflect Hindu tradition?

Manavi Kapour: Yes, it’s true. Hindu marriages are therefore not a monolith. There are, India has a multitude of religions – we have Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains. And even within the Hindu community, marriages can be so different from region to region. I have attended several and there has not been one that is identical to the other. And for the sake of this conversation, I think the most common marriage is the North Indian Hindu marriage, and it has the most cultural power over the marriage culture in India.

At the wedding, usually, there will be a henna ceremony. Then a ceremony where your families brush you with turmeric paste. There is the main marriage, that is, when we walk around a small fire. And then there’s also the post-bridal reception. But I think lately the most anticipated event in any wedding is the song and dance party, which turns into a cocktail party, which has been most influenced by Bollywood and has the most influence on Bollywood.

How has the pandemic changed your idea of ​​a dream wedding?

Manavi Kapour: So the pandemic has reduced our guest lists from a crazy wedding of 5,000 or maybe 1,500 reasonable people to maybe 500. So since this is a palace that I’m going to have my wedding in, yes , they should be able to accommodate these many people and also have enough social distance. And, of course, that includes my relatives, my future husband’s relatives, our friends, and I mean, yeah, their pluses, and if we have, you know, white friends visiting from the United States or the Kingdom -United. So yes, 500 is, I think, a reasonable number.

In all of India, how much money is spent on weddings each year?

Manavi Kapour: The wedding services industry in India is worth around $50 billion. It may have declined during the pandemic, but even that $50 billion figure is likely an underestimate. This is because much of the industry operates informally. This includes matchmakers, wedding planners, designers, jewelers – anyone you can think of who is going to contribute to your wedding. According to this figure, it also contributes around 0.5% to India’s GDP. And it’s one of the biggest employers as an industry. On average, families spend about 7.5-10% of their net worth to marry off their children. Which is huge considering that people are pushing themselves into loans they can’t repay. So it’s a huge expense, and one that families spend their whole lives saving for.

We have examples of matriarchal societies in the south and east where, in effect, the groom’s family pays for the wedding and sort of pays the bride price. But in most North Indian weddings, I would say the bride’s family incurs the maximum expense. Now, with a little more cosmopolitanism taking hold, families tend to share the expenses, the younger ones get into debt on themselves and don’t want to weigh on the parents, so they end up sharing the expenses between them.

Do families feel compelled to give so much importance and attention to weddings, even if it is beyond their financial means?

Manavi Kapour: Oh it certainly is. In small towns, for example, people take out loans that they don’t have the ability to repay. This therefore pushes them further down the class pyramid. Because weddings are so expensive and because the bride’s family always bears most of the expenses, a daughter is seen as a burden, which is also why female feticide rates are so high in India. It gets better, of course, generation after generation, but the problem persists.

So there is an element of economic inequality. But there’s also this huge element of gender inequality.

What is the connection between Bollywood and the great Indian wedding?

Manavi Kapour: The weddings are hosted by Bollywood, both on and off screen. To give a recent example, an Indian actor, Katrina Kaif, married another Indian actor, Vicky Kaushal. There was a huge buzz about this wedding, and we didn’t know about it, because they had banned phones inside the wedding venue. No paparazzi were allowed. But, yeah, there was so much anticipation about what she was going to wear, who was going to do her makeup, who was going to be the photographer, would they be drones, what kind of music were they going to dance to, would they dance on the music of their own films? These are people that we see on screen, and then you see them on your phone screens and it’s just a draw that pulls the draw up, I think, in a lot of ways.

Some traditions have been popularized by Bollywood so much that even cultures in India that did not follow those traditions started following them. For example, the karwa chauth fast, where the wife fasts for the life and longevity of her husband, was once only a northern Indian Punjabi phenomenon, but has become national. As people across India are following him now. For example, in this 2001 film called Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham there’s this whole song about it, and it’s so beautifully shot and, of course, there’s the family and togetherness. So there’s a lot of soft power exerted through this film. So in that sense, yes. But it’s also, Bollywood comes to life and takes traditions that are already prevalent, and it makes it classy and ambitious and adds a little bit of designer clothes, and it’s just something you want to do, and it’s so Instagram-friendly.

What is the line between some of the exportable aspects of Indian marriages and appropriation?

Manavi Kapour: Bollywood has a huge influence on this international recognition because the music is just endearing. It’s something you want to dance to, it’s something you want to look like a Bollywood star while dancing. And, yes, I see a lot of people using old Bollywood Hindi songs for their Western or Christian weddings. And they’re wearing a tuxedo and a white dress, but they’re dancing to a Shah Rukh Khan song. If that’s not real international recognition, then that’s what it really is.

But I think a lot of ceremonies are fetishized. And there’s a certain appropriation, especially with the henna ceremony, because a lot of people don’t understand the roots or the history of it. That’s why I think the Bollywood song and dance and ceremony is the easiest thing to do, because you’re not going to offend anyone. You do nothing but honor our wonderful film industry. But, yes, there is this risk of cultural appropriation.