A recent Jefferies note estimates the spends on the ‘big fat Indian wedding’ at nearly Rs 10 trillion ($130 billion) each year – higher than the annual wedding spend in the United States (US) pegged at around $70 billion, but a tad lower than China ($170 billion).
 "Wedding industry")
Wedding industry
If it were a consumption category in itself, the ‘big fat Indian wedding’, Jefferies said, would rank as the second largest, only behind food and groceries.
The current average expenditure per wedding of around Rs 1.2 million, Jefferies said, is 5x India’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of $2.9k and greater than 3x the average annual household income of around Rs 0.4 million. Compared globally, India’s wedding spend to GDP ratio at 5x, is significantly higher than several other countries.
“Interestingly, this spend is nearly 2x the total amount spent (including both the bride and groom) on nearly 18 years of education in India from pre-primary to graduation (around Rs 0.6 million). As a comparison, wedding spend / education spend ratio in the US is only 0.5x for public education and 0.1x for private education,” wrote analysts at Jefferies in a recent note led by Vivek Maheshwari, their equity analyst.
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In simple words, an average Indian couple spends around 2x on weddings…
