The Indian wedding season is uponeth us, and we are all very aware of it whether we want to or not. For ’tis the season of the Big Fat Instagram Wedding.
Every time I refresh Instagram, someone I know (or don’t) gets married or engaged. It happens with such alarming regularity that I have begun to suspect a causal relationship between my thumb and their destiny. Refresh. Shaadi. Refresh. Bridal photoshoot. Refresh. “I love fairytales, but ours is my favourite”. Surely this cannot be a coincidence.
Relentless, perfectly curated visuals cascade one after another: pastel lehengas against heritage backdrops, florals arranged with architectural precision, the same rehashed captions about forever, the laughing in slow motion for the camera. There are flawless pictures of flawless people having the time of their flawless lives. The meet-cute of the bride and groom, the “first look,” the carefully choreographed head-on-shoulder moment. I could go on, but you get the gist.
The wedding, of course, is no longer just a wedding. It is content. Content for weeks before and months after. Engagement shoots, proposal reels, bridal entries, bridal exits, bridal emotions, bridal playlists, the list is endless. Don’t get me wrong. I am a big fan of this genre. The girl-gets-her-prince, happily-ever-after arc is comforting, even somewhat aspirational. But sooner or later, it loses its charm. Mostly because after a while, one starts to wonder how many happily-ever-afters can really be manufactured in the same font, colour palette, and song selection.
Also Read: Desi weddings are now fake, vapid, meaningless extravaganzas. Billionaires pop out of nowhere
The quintessential Instagram wedding
Somewhere between ticking off vendors and perfecting aesthetics, we seem to forget the most important part of the wedding checklist: the marriage. All the other boxes are checked: venue, outfits, décor, and photography, but is the happiness box checked? Or at least the honesty one?
We have, as people, become deeply performative. Joy now needs witnesses. Love needs documentation. And perhaps that’s why there is a renewed fascination with “simple weddings.” Not because simplicity itself is revolutionary, but because when everyone is doing the same choreographed extravaganza, restraint begins to feel radical.
The simple wedding stands out because it refuses to audition for the algorithm.
Weddings, today, feel less about love, union, or companionship and more about colour combinations, the right songs, and cinematic wedding photography that rivals a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film.
This is not all opinion but observation after attending a few (more than I would have liked) weddings over the past year.
The bride/groom spend more time capturing memories than creating them. The idea is to show off rather than be present for one of the most momentous days of your life. The idea of the happily ever after is more than the anticipation of living it. Just reiterating, the exhibition overpowers the experience. Creating a hollow memory to reminisce in the future.
Frankly, this seems like an excellent time to become a wedding planner/photographer. As Anushka Sharma’s Shruti Kakkar wisely tells Ranveer Singh’s Bittoo Sharma in the 2010 film Band Baaja Baaraat, “Recession ho ya inflation, shaadiyan toh hoti rahengi aur log unpe lakhon croron kharachte rahenge (Recession or inflation, weddings will keep happening and people will keep spending millions on them).” Some industries are truly evergreen.
Also Read: Fake weddings are Delhi’s new distraction. Marigolds, lehengas, sangeet & beer—no vows
The truth behind the pastel façade
But here’s the thing. If you are a middle-class person like me, your idea of marriage is rarely the fairytale that is being sold to us online. Marriage, for many of us, is synonymous with compromise, with social obligation, adjustment, and the quiet maintenance of the status quo. It is practical before it is poetic.
Weddings, then, become the better part of the deal. The one place where fantasy is allowed. Where we can briefly suspend reality and go all out. Because after that comes real life. So we spend, we curate, we perform happiness. Perhaps not because we are shallow, but because we are hopeful.
And yet, somewhere beneath the florals and filters, a small voice persists. To borrow from Friends, as Courteney Cox’s Monica tells Matthew Perry’s Chandler: “I don’t want a wedding. I want a marriage.”
Most of us want that — a real marriage — not one that looks perfect on Instagram, but one that survives after the reels stop and the captions grow quiet.
Maybe that’s what’s so unsettling about the Big Fat Instagram Wedding, not the excess, but the fear that we are confusing the spectacle for the substance. That we are rehearsing joy instead of living it. And that once the season passes, and the feed moves on to the next pastel-drenched celebration, we are left hoping that what remains offline is enough.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)