The wedding-planner’s checklist now has more than the regular band, baaja and baaraat. The list gets taller with ensuring pulse oximeters, RT-PCR tests and Covid-clauses, as weddings in the country choose to not let a pandemic get in the way.

“Safety is becoming an important feature in weddings as it involves older family members, grandparents etc, and no one wants to take a risk and regret later,” says Prerita Sidhwaani, co-owner and marketing head with wedding management company DreamzKrraft, handling 300-plus weddings annually. This led them to partner with diagnostics company Thyrocare to test guests, vendors and so on at the weddings and related events managed by them in 2021. To screen, test and keep the wedding celebrations Covid-safe.

“Clients are asking for RT-PCR tests as the other tests are less accurate,” Sidhwaani told BusinessLine . An RT-PCR test for Covid-19 is done on guests, about two days earlier, in a destination wedding. The labourers that help set-up the decoration etc wear PPEs (personal protective equipment), the staff wear masks and face-shields and at the venue, and the guest temperatures are taken once a day, she explained.

The ‘Covid’ clause

There has not been an incident of the bride or groom testing positive, but for a recent Jaipur wedding, a family had to drop out on testing positive, she said. The cost for the protective paraphernalia is passed on to the client, she said, adding that DreamzKrraft absorbs some of the cost too. Contracts with hotels etc are flexible, she says, pointing to the “Covid clause”, that allows rescheduling. “We stand to support each other,” she added, as it is an unpredictable time.

Community social media platform LocalCircles, in a recent survey found that of 8900-odd responses, about 35 per cent had received a wedding or engagement invitation for November-December period, but decided to give it a pass because of the virus. But about 20 per cent did plan to attend these events. And since weddings, local or outstation, tend to be family affairs, it is likely that multiple family members would attend these events taking the number higher than 20 per cent, it observed.

The wedding season in India continues to roll, even as governments in Germany and the United Kingdom, for instance, have imposed different levels of lockdown and curbs on Christmas celebrations and year-end festivities to prevent super-spreader events, as they see an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases.

But Sidhwaani is having a “busy” December and expects to close 2020 at about 200 weddings. She says, 2021 will be back on track, as those who postponed their weddings, now want to go ahead, but with adequate safety measures.

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