In a wedding supply shop in Bangalore, Nairu Singh, 31, was selling wedding dresses for bridal parties in the market.
But he was struggling to make money for a year.
So, he decided to get married.
The shop, which he opened last month, sells wedding dresses and brideswears in a small, brightly lit shop, and has a line of other wedding accessories too.
“The best part is that the dress is made in our shop,” Singh told NDTV.
“We take care of it.
It is not expensive.
It gives you that comfort you would need.”
When the store started selling wedding supplies in April, the shop owner told NDtv that it was “the first time I ever made a profit”.
The store has since started collecting wedding supplies from other vendors and selling them at an average of about Rs 200 per wedding dress and Rs 400 per wedding gown.
This is due to a surge in demand from women and their brides, Singh said.
“It is very difficult to get supplies for wedding parties.
Most vendors are in India but the women don’t want to buy wedding supplies,” he said.
“They need to know that the prices are lower and that it is the best possible option.”
Singh said the women also wanted to know about the cost of wedding dresses.
“Most of the time the dresses cost about Rs 1,500.
They are more expensive than other wedding supplies.
I think women don,t want to spend more than this,” he added.
Some vendors in the industry, however, are reluctant to share their prices because of safety concerns.
“If a wedding dress goes missing, it will be a disaster.
The seller will not get paid.
They won’t be able to sell wedding dresses to the customer.
They will be looking at a huge loss,” said Arvind Singh, an associate at the National Women’s Association of India.
“There are also a few women who are reluctant for the women to share the cost,” he explained.
“I can tell you that some women do not want to share wedding costs with the men either.”
Women who have gone through the process of buying wedding supplies say that it can be difficult to keep track of the exact cost of a wedding.
“It can be hard to keep a tally because you are not buying from the same source,” said Bipin Suresh, a wedding and funeral consultant and a former wedding dressmaker.
Suresh added that some vendors, especially in small towns, will not give the exact price.
“These days, most of the wedding dresses are made by a single woman,” he told NDCTV.
“Women are making a large profit at the moment.
If the vendors are not providing the exact prices, the vendors will lose the business,” he pointed out.
The industry has faced challenges before.
In 2009, the Indian government started enforcing strict guidelines on the sale of wedding supplies on a national basis, banning all retail sales of wedding goods, including the sale at the home or office.
However, the government also loosened some rules on weddings in 2011, allowing vendors to sell to the public.
But the rules were still stringent.
Shesh added, “It is not as simple as banning the sale.
It’s more like regulating what you can sell.””
It’s a grey area.
There are different rules.
It will be harder to enforce them,” he also said.
A number of vendors in Mumbai and other cities have started accepting wedding supplies online.
Some of them, like Vasant Vaira, have also started accepting cash.
“As long as the wedding dress is handmade, it is not something that can be made cheaply.
It requires a very skilled person to make it,” Vairasaid.
“So, the more money you make from it, the better the quality.”
However, Vairav, the owner of Vasant Shastri, said, “The demand is still low.
The prices have gone up.
Now we have to accept the money and pay for the wedding.”