What does it take to organise award-winning, large-scale, seven-day weddings attended by thousands and to tone down and concentrate on 50-people events in the present day? Hear it from Prairna Khuller, whose planning company Eventzinspired is fresh from winning two big awards at the Wow Awards Asia.

Congratulations on the two awards! Tell us about them…

Wow Awards Asia (organised by EventFAQs Media) saw applications from 25 countries such as Dubai, Bahrain, Thailand and India for their Indian wedding celebrations from March 2019 to April 2020 and my company, Eventzinspired was one of the two gold award winners for the Wedding Celebration of the Year. The #Jagari wedding that took place in January this year was a Jain wedding of 3,500 people spread across seven days, with each day having a different theme and location. The theme of the wedding was Rajwada and the bride wanted us to recreate the splendour of an old-fashioned palace in the humble P.C. Chandra Garden. Having back-to-back events during this wedding that stretched across seven days took three months of planning.

There was a traditional Jain beginning to the wedding, a bohemian sundowner for the couple, a colourful garden-themed mayra ceremony, a Bengali-style haldat with Bengali folk dancers and 30,000kg of petals were showered in those three hours, and the wedding was the biggest with a king-style arrival for the groom. Thirty-five dancers welcomed the groom in his chariot, 20 dancers were for the bride who had a special palki made, a separate structure was made exclusively for the varmala and I remember seeing thousands of cell phone flashlights going up in the air — it was a spectacular sight! The bride wanted her wedding to be remembered and turns out, this award was announced on her birthday!
The second award we won was the bronze award in the category of “anniversary/birthday celebration of the year” for a one-year-old’s birthday, unlike the usual milestone birthdays and anniversaries that have become the norm now. The parents wanted to do a cocktail dinner for their friends and a birthday party for kids. So we did two events in one evening, held at Hyatt Regency Kolkata — it started with a circus-themed party in the early evening and later evolved into the Cirque du Soleil-style party for their parents. Common themes like popcorn at the birthday party and a popcorn-themed floral arrangement at the cocktail party tied the two parties together. We researched a lot for this event and were so happy to win the bronze for this.

What does this award mean to you?

Winning two awards was a big high for not only our company at this time but with every such award we win on a big platform, Bengal is taken more seriously. Most of the labourers who do these beautiful weddings are all Bengali so this award coming to Calcutta makes me very proud. Doing events endlessly is like a death sentence for our creativity and because we do around eight such grand weddings in a year, we can give it our endless thought, creativity and efforts. All the modern innovations, especially with virtual events right now, should be credited to my daughter, Pragya Chopra Khuller who brought with her creative eye and experience of her design degree from Symbiosis (International, Pune) and having worked in Mumbai. Both the wedding and the birthday were ideated and executed by her and she did a great job.

How has it been doing events during the pandemic?

We have done three virtual and two physical events. The planner’s role has become of utmost importance during this period because sometimes the client has faith in us when they can’t physically be here. For example, a birthday girl’s fiance is depending only on me to execute his ideas for his to-be bride to do everything, from creating a photo-themed walk to arranging for a guitarist and a different cake, so that she does not miss her fiance’s presence, is a lot of responsibility.

What are some of the major changes and challenges that you have faced?

I think it’s important to accept reality first. The definition of “big” has changed completely. We have to think new to make the client happy so that they feel that we have given them the same “big”, within the limitations of today. For food now, maybe we’ll curate the best hamper that could have everything the client could think of; for decor, we’d rather make a pre-made photo op that can just be propped up at the venue and instead of a band, we can provide a good, virtual artiste. There is no choice but to pay attention to quality, detail and creativity to still be able to make our clients feel special.

I am clear on this that the safety aspect should not be compromised on. My team is the core team, the panning has to be tight and the vendors need to know all the rules. Sometimes the client also needs to be made aware of the limitations because promises that can’t be kept should not be made right now. We are very particular about following all necessary guidelines and permissions and yet delivering a great experience. We, as planners, have to be far more responsible right now than we ever were.

How do you visualise the future of this industry?

I don’t see big weddings happening till the end of November though a lot depends on the government. For people to whom (size of the) wedding matters will probably try to postpone. We’ll probably have to wait till December-January to see the same amount of money being spent that we were used to and I still see a question mark surrounding destination weddings. Safety is bigger than travel. We’ll have to get creative within the limitations that we have.