NEW DELHI: The big fat Indian wedding is getting bigger, fatter and now branded, with multinational fast-food chains such as Domino's, Costa Coffee, Haagen-Dazs and Baskin Robbins adorning several marriage parties across big cities.
After introducing limousines and even helicopters to ferry the bride and groom, exotic theme-based decorations, and expensive gifts for guests, branded food and beverage stalls have become a new fad among marriage hosts.
Davindra Kapoor, a Delhi-based caterer, says 15-20% of weddings these days demand branded stall along with traditional snacks and cuisines. Kapoor's SK Caterers counts Honda, Aditya Birla Group and Escorts Group among its corporate clients.
Fast-food majors see this trend not only as a new business channel, but also as a big fat opportunity to promote their brands.
"A lot of people at weddings are our target customers where they get a chance to sample our pizza," Harneet Singh Rajpal, vice-president of marketing at Domino's, says. "It gives us visibility... and is a fantastic consumer connects," he says.
Ostentatious Showmanship
Rajpal says weddings and other outdoor catering services have become an important alternate revenue channel for the top pizza chain. To make the most of the growing demand, the US brand has formed a separate vertical for outdoor catering with dedicated staff, cold vans, pizza ovens and other paraphernalia in select markets such as Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, cities in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. A Domino's executive directly involved in outdoor sales says wedding accounts for 50% of the outdoor catering vertical's revenues during the marriage seasons of November-February and April-May.
Mumbai-based upscale wedding planner Sushil Wadhwa says demand for branded outlets is a growing trend all over the country, particularly in Chennai, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Mumbai, Punjab and Delhi. In many cases, wealthy Indians want Illy cafe, Haagen-Dazs or Costa Coffee to replicate their outlets in malls, complete with similar seating arrangements.
"They cost a bomb, but people are willing to spend to make it a grand Indian wedding," Wadhwa says. "It gives them the snob value and the bragging rights to have such brands and set-up at their weddings."
A parlour of American ice-cream brand Haagen-Dazs, for example, costs 5-8 lakh for one evening while a Costa Coffee bar would cost about 3 lakh, he says.
Caterers and wedding planners in many cities say the demand for branded food stalls has gathered pace in the last two years. They attribute the trend to a combination of factors ranging from providing eatables that many guests would be more comfortable with to ostentatious showmanship.
"Weddings are becoming more and more showmanship kind of things these days," says Anil Tandon, executive director of Tivoli BSE 0.00 % Garden Resort Hotel, a popular spot for parties and weddings in south Delhi. Santosh Desai, managing director of Future Brands, says weddings are almost like competitive sports these days, meant to make a statement. "The hosts want to underline the specialness of the event and brands are one of the elements to concoct the specialness," he says.
