WeddingWire India, the Indian subsidiary of The Knot Worldwide, a wedding technology platform connecting engaged couples with local weddings professionals, providing free wedding services including planning tools, blogs, and wedding inspiration, today released its yearly report on how the year 2022 went by for the wedding industry. With the wedding season returning with a bang, the platform saw a big 48.48% surge as compared to last year in overall traffic.
Categories with maximum traction
The report revealed that venue vendors were the most in-demand with 29% of bookings being made for the category, followed by wedding photographers and Makeup artists at 11% and 5% respectively. In terms of venues, banquet halls with 56% demand emerged as a winner with no close competitors. Interestingly, the demand for resort and destination weddings increased as vaccination weddings gained popularity in the post-covid era.
Destinations in vogue
According to the data, as the covid restrictions lifted up, international destination weddings with a limited guest list and curated experiences became fashionable again. The top three overseas locations with maximum traction in 2022 were Singapore, Abu Dhabi, and New York. On the other hand, in terms of destinations in India, Udaipur; Goa led the bandwagon, and Jaipur followed suit.
Interestingly, Delhi after a year again topped the list of the top 3 cities that hosted the maximum number of weddings. It was closely followed by Bangalore and Mumbai for the 2nd time in a row. On the other hand, Tripura, Sikkim, and Imphal recorded the least number of weddings. The data also revealed, Lucknow, Jaipur, and Gurgaon are the top three Tier 2 cities in terms of weddings.
Making the big decision about the date
The report revealed that December (21.5%) witnessed the maximum number of weddings followed by Feb (15.49%). In fact, 2nd December 2022 (Friday), was the most popular date for weddings last year.
Weekend weddings were another trend that still ranked high on the popularity chart as most couples choose Sunday (20%) closely followed by Friday (19.7%).
Budgeting
In last year’s report, we revealed how the role of millennials is changing in wedding planning. They are not only making key decisions for their weddings but also taking care of payments. The data shows that the average wedding expenditure in 2022 increased by 14.66% to 28 lakhs, up from 21 lakhs in 2021.
Talking about 2022 trends and insights, Anam Zubair, Head of Marketing – WeddingWire India, a part of The Knot Worldwide, said “2022 was the year the wedding industry had been waiting for, especially as the last two years were uncertain and slightly limiting for the industry due to the pandemic. We are excited to see what 2023 holds for the wedding industry considering Gen-Z is entering the wedding cycle.”
The report divulged that the guest-size curation was a mixed bag with some couples and families wanting to keep it intimate with less than 100 guests (60.21%), while others hosted a much larger crowd of more than 300 guests (13%).
