The Indian wedding industry might be second-biggest in the world after the $70-billion American one, but the $50-billion Indian extravaganza beats any other in its pomp and splendour. So much so that tickets are now being sold to attend an Indian wedding, with many foreigners willing to shell out hefty sums to be part of the show.
JoinMyWedding is one such online and exclusive platform that allows travellers and foreigners to buy tickets to weddings in India.
“You haven’t been to India until you’ve been to an Indian wedding,” reads the website of the platform, started by Hungarian-Australian entrepreneur Orsi Parkanyi in 2016. It started with two registrations in 2016, and today boasts of up to 3,000 registrations.
“The idea came up when my friends were getting married and I could not attend, and missed out on a lot of weddings while living in Australia. So I thought what if I could attend ‘any’ wedding by buying a ticket?” Parkanyi, co-founder and president, told FE. “Indian weddings are big and exorbitant, and to attend an opulent wedding in person is a unique experience,” she added.
The platform helps one create a wedding listing, where one can add details about the wedding that might interest guests while exact location and host details are revealed once travellers book a wedding.
While the aim is to register and sell tickets on the platform and bring travellers and foreign visitors to India, it also helps to-be married couples crowdfund their weddings.
The average cost of a ticket is $150 per traveller for a one-day event and $250 per traveller for two or more days (since most Indian weddings have multiple ceremonies that take place over three days). Parkanyi works on a revenue-share basis — 60% goes to the couple, the rest stays with the company.
On an average, an Indian family spends Rs 5 lakh to Rs 50 lakh on weddings. The Indian wedding industry is a huge opportunity for startups like Joinmywedding.com to cater to a sizeable market.
“The wedding business is a unique cultural experience and most travellers happily pay for it, which also gives them a chance to become locals for a day and experience the Indian culture,” said Parkanyi, whose strategic decision to start this venture in India was only because of the fact that the Indian market is easy to sell, unlike Norway, Australia or any other country where people or organisers of the highly coveted weddings usually do not entertain outsiders to intrude in their private ceremonies or weddings.
Currently, the focus of the platform is to offer services in India but there have been requests from Greece, Dubai, and Pakistan also to register weddings, Parkanyi shared, adding that India is her test market and currently the top priority.