scorecardresearch
Sunday, March 24, 2024
Support Our Journalism
HomeFeaturesA big fat Delhi farmhouse wedding went on a green diet. Lab-grown...

A big fat Delhi farmhouse wedding went on a green diet. Lab-grown diamonds and vegan menu

A tree was planted in each guest’s name to offset their carbon footprint, while the flowers, food and waste were donated to local NGOs.

Follow Us :
Text Size:

When Rahil Kalra, a pharmaceutical company executive, and Sanya Budhiraja, a consultant, decided to get married, they just had one priority – the Big Fat Indian wedding had to shrink.

A Chattarpur farmhouse wedding in Delhi doesn’t exactly conjure up images of sustainability and zero waste. Such wedding parties are all about conspicuous consumption, bling and new money.

But Rahil and Sanya’s wedding wasn’t going to be bursting at the seams. It was thinned, stripped down to the couple’s version of the bare minimum. Minimal décor with jute overhangs and mason jars full of fresh flowers wrapped in rope, cane-backed chairs and rustic, perfectly worn-out wooden tables –– sustainability was packaged prettily.

Rahil and Sanya's minimal wedding decor | Antara Baruah, ThePrint
Rahil and Sanya’s minimal wedding decor | Photo: Antara Baruah, ThePrint

“We’ve always cared about nature. Sanya and I met at a park for the first time,” said Rahil rather earnestly.

From 600-700, they sliced numbers down to a still sizable 120. Their ‘jaimalas’ (wedding garlands) were made out of leaves. Attendees showered the two with rose petals held in banana leaves. Rahil, who has been vegan for 10 years, swapped ritualistic honey and curd with date syrup and ‘vegan yoghurt.’ The diamonds on their rings were lab-grown, not mined.

Cane and jute were the primary materials used for decor | Photo: Antara Baruah, ThePrint
Cane and jute were the primary materials used for decor | Photo: Antara Baruah, ThePrint

“We saw a wedding in Amritsar. Food was being thrown out into the gutter while a dog looked on hungrily,” said Rahil.


Also read: Pakistani brides falling for Indian designers and ‘Sharia-compliant’ Sabyasachi lehengas


Planning a green wedding

That image became etched in the couple’s mind, making them want to do things differently. The leftover food from their wedding went to Robin Hood Army, a Noida-based NGO that works to combat hunger. After each of their functions – mehendi, cocktail, and the wedding itself – volunteers would come and pile the leftovers into the boots of their cars, after which they would reach the ‘underprivileged.’ They tried to keep their leftovers to the bare minimum and guests were encouraged to finish what was on their plates.

The hordes of flowers, sourced from a ‘mandi’ (market) in Chattarpur’s Fatehpur Bari, were also donated to the NGO Nirmalaya, where they will be compressed and pulped. The resulting essence will then be used to create incense sticks. The ivory cloth adorning the chairs—and their friends during the dances—was “residual cloth” sourced from “local designers.”

Fresh, locally used flowers were used in abundance | Photo: Antara Baruah, ThePrint
Fresh, locally sourced flowers were used in abundance | Photo: Antara Baruah, ThePrint

Also Read: What’s eco-anxiety? It’s caused by climate change and can be combated


Vegan menu, carbon offsets

Rich, creamy Dal Bukhara; succulent Shami kebabs; a chaat counter serving gol gappas and crispy aloo tikkis in a pool of sweet curd and tangy chutneys; the food was standard North Indian fare. Except it was all vegan. Kwality, one of the capital’s foremost wedding caterers, specially curated a plant-based menu for Rahil and Sanya.

A vegan chaat counter at the wedding | Photo: Antara Baruah, ThePrint
A vegan chaat counter at the wedding | Photo: Antara Baruah, ThePrint

“We have done vegan counters before, but this was our first entirely vegan menu,” said head chef Zakir Khan. Khan and his team didn’t find it a particularly daunting task, given that vegan alternatives for butter, cream and other such ingredients are readily available in the capital.

Earthen cups used instead of plastic to serve beverages | Photo: Antara Baruah, ThePrint
Earthen cups used instead of plastic to serve beverages | Photo: Antara Baruah, ThePrint

The couple’s friend Ripu Daman Bevli helped conceptualise and implement their eco-friendly celebration. Despite sustainable living being contorted into a number of market-friendly forms, Rahil and Sanya said they were the first among their friends to go the zero-waste route.

Ripu, a ‘plogger’ by profession—a combination of jogging and collecting garbage—who was also anointed as India’s ‘plogging ambassador’ by Union minister Kiren Rijiju in 2019, believes in pre-cycling, which promotes cutting-down waste from the get-go, and segregating garbage at the source. For example, there was no single-use plastic and less packaging material at the venue, eliminating the need for recycling. Their waste was collected by Saahas, a solid-waste management NGO Ripu works with.

A tree was planted in each guest’s name to offset their carbon footprint. After their ‘carbon offset ratios’ were calculated, the guests were sent the location and coordinates of the tree planted in their name.

Ripu was also going to collate a ‘carbon credit report’ on an excel sheet, charting out approximates using each guest and their corresponding emissions.


Also read: Wetlands can help reach sustainable goals but not all of them are blue carbon ecosystems


No compromise on luxury

The couple’s wedding planner, Dhruv Chauhan, said that while he hadn’t done too many sustainable weddings up until now, the number was increasing. The wedding planner, who runs ‘Weddings by Dhruv Chauhan’, claims to have executed several high-profile weddings.

He casually mentioned a grand wedding he had planned; for a Haryana minister’s child who got married at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru stadium with 4,000 guests in attendance. According to Wedmegood, a wedding-help website, Chauhan’s rates range from Rs 2.5 to Rs 4 lakh.

While understated and tastefully done, the wedding retained the opulence characteristic of Delhi’s elite milieu. Where Rahil and Sanya couldn’t compromise, they didn’t. The groom wore an Ashish Soni achkan and the bride an Astha Narang lehenga. The couple, however, seemed unsure about the luxury designers’ sustainability practices.

Sanya admitted that finding a ‘vegan’ wedding-wear designer in Delhi was difficult, adding that Anita Dongre is “one of the few”.  She then spoke about her sustainable wedding: “It’s not that hard; it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.”

Convinced their wedding was radical, Sanya and Rahil brought a female priest into the mix. “If we’re breaking all these barriers, we might as well break one more,” said Rahil, laughing.

(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)

Subscribe to our channels on YouTube, Telegram & WhatsApp

Support Our Journalism

India needs fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism, packed with on-ground reporting. ThePrint – with exceptional reporters, columnists and editors – is doing just that.

Sustaining this needs support from wonderful readers like you.

Whether you live in India or overseas, you can take a paid subscription by clicking here.

Support Our Journalism

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular