The Uttarakhand Government recently allowed the operation of wedding points and banquet halls outside containment zones in every district but very few people are approaching the owners of these venues due to the limited number of guests allowed in a function. According to the owners of these venues, not many people are booking the dates at these venues since the administration has allowed only 50 guests in an event.
The manager of a wedding point at Sahastradhara Road, Ramesh Chandra said, “Indian weddings mostly include all the family members including close and distant relatives.
The 50 guest limit at a wedding is quite less for people here who want to celebrate their special day with their friends and relatives.
Thinking that the Government might change this decision in the future, people are not booking any dates right now. So nothing has changed for our business so far and considering there are no more dates for the wedding in the next few months, it will not be better in the near future too.”
Moreover, some owners of wedding venues have also said that the government should fix the limit for guests as per the area of the venue because applying the same number for both small and larger venues is not justified.
“The State Government has allowed 50 guests in a small wedding function at home as well as in a big banquet hall which, according to me is unfair.
My banquet hall is about 10 times bigger than a regular house so it can easily accommodate about 400 guests while maintaining proper social distancing protocols to curb Covid-19 contagion,” said Amit Oberoi, owner of a banquet hall near Haridwar Road. According to him, people are enquiring about wedding venues but not actually booking any date except those who cannot really push their wedding date further.
“There are almost no weddings till October and those who want to book the venue are asking whether we can allow more than 50 guests which we immediately refused as we cannot go against the government’s orders. However, the less number of people causes an increase in the price per guest in an event because we have to pay our staff too for working during the event. If the government will limit the guests as per the space of a venue of the wedding, this issue will be resolved to some extent,” said Oberoi.
Talking about the limited number of guests allowed in a wedding function, Namrata Dwivedi who is about to marry in November, said, “We have called four banquet halls so far and everyone told us that they will charge at least Rs 1,000 extra for each guest and this price keeps increasing as per the standard of wedding venues. We want to have a wedding celebration at one of the wedding halls to maintain social distancing among the guests but the organisers of these places are charging way more than before.”
Therefore, she further added, waiting for some more weeks seems better in the current scenario than spending lakhs of rupees on just 50 guests.