The latest Covid restrictions announced by the state government restricting the number of persons for outdoor and indoor functions gathering has spoiled the plans for more than 10 thousand wedding planners, including tent house operators, caterers, photographers, band operators, florists, who were planning to cash in on the upcoming wedding season scheduled from February 22 to March end.

All this, as due to gathering restrictions as well as apprehending more curbs in future the many marriage parties have started postponing the marriages and consequently canceling bookings.

Talking to The Telegraph Online. Pradeep Singh, President of Dhanbad Decorator Association said, “The new set of guidelines restricting the gathering for outdoor as well as indoor functions to 100 will totally affect the income prospects of upcoming marriage season as large majority of bookings are likely to be canceled and only the limited number of marriages will be held on smaller scale.”

“The last two years of dull season have completely broken the spine of wedding planners as majority of them have turned bankrupt as despite almost zero income they were compelled to pay the rent of godowns, electricity and also pay the wages of some regular employees,” Singh added.

“We are more concerned about the labourers like electricians, catering boys staff, generator operators, sweepers, drummers, etc who are dependent on seasonal income only as having suffered huge losses during the last two years as they have no savings to survive another dull season,” said Singh.

Echoing sentiments, Manoj Gupta, owner Navratna caterers in Dhanbad said, “The ominous effects of increased restrictions due to covid has already started showing effect since early morning of today as two of marriage booking have already been canceled and we are expecting the trend to continue in coming days with greater restrictions.”

Explaining the difficulties faced by wedding planners since the beginning of lockdown on March 22 last year Gupta said, “We have witnessed only a brief period of some good income during the last year from November 19 to December 15 during the short lagan (marriage) season and again were expecting some bounce back of business during the next lagan season from January 22, which has been completely spoiled by the new set of restrictions.”

Raju Malkar, a court more based florist of Dhanbad said, “Due to restrictions the biggest sufferer becomes the florists as stage decorations and vehicle decoration are also minimized and only corum is maintained.”