Event managers are setting up theme weddings in glitzy Bangkok

Trend-conscious Calcuttans are no longer going to Bangkok only to honeymoon; they are getting married there.

Event managers of the city have organised as many as nine weddings in the Thai capital in the past year. This month, one of the city’s top industrialists will be taking 450-odd guests and a team of chefs to Bangkok for his son’s wedding.

“The wedding will span five days. All the guests will be put up in one of the best hotels of Bangkok. The ceremonies will be held as they would have been in Calcutta. The chefs and caterers will be flown from here. The main reception will be hosted in the city after the wedding party returns,” said an entrepreneur who has been invited to the wedding.

Besides Bangkok, Phuket and Pattaya are being explored as potential wedding venues. “Southeastern destinations might be close to the city, but they are still ‘foreign’ destinations,” said wedding planner Vinod Bhandari of Winning Edge.

He organised three weddings in Phuket and Pattaya last year, and has been flooded with enquiries this year. “But the foreign factor does not mean that one has to spend a fortune. On the contrary, it is more economical and hassle-free (than organising a big wedding in the city). One just has to pay attention to logistics management.”

During the peak wedding season, demand for rooms in the city’s star hotels exceeds availability and tariffs increase two-fold. In some hotels, the tariff for a room shoots up to Rs 15,000 from Rs 6,000.

But in destinations like Bangkok, Phuket and Pattaya, rooms in the best of hotels are available at almost half the price. “Southeast Asian countries are going out of their way to win a slice of the Indian marriage market. If a client wants to take chefs and caterers from Calcutta, hotels there have the infrastructure that Indian chefs want. Even cruise liners make arrangements to serve Indian food,” said wedding planner Sanjay Duggal.

In the past five years, Goa, Jaipur and Jodhpur had become the wedding destinations of choice for the swish set. But the rise in airfares seems to have curbed the trend. “Airlines flying to Southeast Asian destinations are now more attractive. If there are block bookings, they are willing to give good discounts,” said Ravi Kejriwal of Globe Travel Agency in Dalhousie.