A newly wedded millennial couple was perplexed looking at the redundant gifts received that included five pressure cookers, four crockery sets, four mixer grinders, and so many wall clocks. The couple who was to shift abroad, found the gifts irrelevant as the cookers were not induction cooktop friendly and the fragile crockery sets cannot be carried. These repeated wedding gifts will face the same fate as the Soanpapdi box received during Diwali, ready to repack and gift and the saga continues.
Unlike other generations the millennials are believers in living a sustainable life and are drawn towards philanthropist activities such as donating to charitable organisations, contributing to community welfare, etc. The same behaviour is exhibited in millennial weddings as well, where the newly married couples have donated the gift money received from guests to charity.
The millennial couples of today would like to receive gifts that will have high memory value and can cherish such experiences for a lifetime.
This changing millennial mindset soon became an opportunity for Kanika Subbaih, who founded India’s first gift registry platform- Wedding Wishlist. Weddings in India are a big affair, where people spend a third of their savings in creating king-size celebrations, out of which 15 percent is spent on gifts alone. The gift registry platforms with their origin in western countries, helps families avoid waste also helping the couple start their new life with all the essential things they require.
The Wedding Wishlist – What is it?
Wedding Wishlist is an online gift registry platform that offers free service to couples. The wedding website allows the couple to create a portal for free, where they can fill in the function details, their story, gift preferences and RSVPs. The couple creates a Wishlist of items that they require. If a couple is planning to shift to a new city or shifting abroad their gift requirement will comprise of home décor items, appliances. The couple chooses brands from which it wants to be gifted. The platform has brands of luggage backpacks, grooming products, jewellery, crockery, beauty and spa, adventure getaways, holiday packages, etc. Wedding Wishlist earns commission from the brands from which the guests make purchases.
If a couple wishes to donate to charitable organisations such as orphanages, handicapped individuals, old-age homes, or pet dogs they can enter the amount they wish to donate to the charitable organisation.
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Wedding Wishlist is a tech-based platform that offers e-wedding invites for various occasions, invitation gifts, and printed invites, therefore, giving personalised communication to the guests.
The tech-infused in the wedding business – Wedding Wishlist
Wedding Wishlist is a tech-based platform that offers e-wedding invites for various occasions, invitation gifts, and printed invites, therefore, giving personalised communication to the guests. It has two apps, one of them helps to build a close community with their guests, interact, exchange communication, images, track RSVPs, and more, and the other app helps the wedding organisers/planners seamlessly plan the entire wedding logistics without even needing to log into a system each time. It also offers virtual services such as digital albums, live stream of wedding functions, RSVP manager, post-event website, etc. It makes the wedding planning process hassle-free and manage budgets better.
New trends in the wedding industry
The preventive measures to contain the virus have limited the presence of people in the wedding venues to 50. This has led to disruptions in the wedding industry and unless the infection spread comes to a standstill, below are the new trends that are most likely to be followed:
Mini Ceremonies: For maximising safety, ceremonies are pre-planned with an intimate gathering.
Hygiene and safety: The wedding families are offering the guests welcome gifts as masks and sanitisers. Post function the wedding planners are also making calls to guests to ensure guests are in good health.
The Virtual invite: To save on time, money, and energy, couples are creating e-invites, creating their wedding websites for the digital invitation.
What lies ahead for wedding start-ups and other small businesses in this glam sham?
The gift registry platforms with a plethora of small to medium-sized crockery brands, jewellery, and most importantly the travel and adventure companies on its platforms will boost their income. With the world now turning into virtual, providing live streaming and other digital services will be imperative to offer convenience to the relatives and friends to view the wedding who are distantly present.
