Chennai’s shutterbugs make a buck with exotic pre-wedding shoots

CHENNAI: Your feet on the moist beach sand leave perfect footprints, as your white flowy dress dances to the rhythm of the wind.

The waves crash to the shore and carefully deposit tiny seashells. If you are lucky you chance upon a beautiful conch shell. You carefully pick it up while your partner embraces you from behind.

While this concept was in vogue among couples wanting to get a pre-wedding photoshoot or video shoot done, before the pandemic; things have changed in the wedding business post lockdown.

“Before the pandemic happened, the concept of pre-wedding shoots was only slowly picking up heat among couples.

“During thelockdown, people were having weddings within their houses which naturally cut huge costs. Now that everything has opened up, couples are spending ridiculous amounts of money for individual ceremonies like haldi, cocktail parties, sangeet, reception, especially the pre-wedding phase wherein couples do photo and video shoots,” says Mohammed Thalha, Co-Founder of The Camellia Events, a wedding planning company.

Owner of Studio Wunder, Dinesh B says that his clients have a huge budget for weddings and their budget for pre-weddings shoots alone is 5 lakhs. He says, “The couple approach us with a plan and concept. After we get on board with them, we travel with them. They take care of all the expenses and accommodation. We did a concept shoot for a couple in Puducherry and they paid us 2 lakhs with accommodation.

“It sometimes happens that the couples just rent our camera and take three days’ photography classes from us. Once they feel confident they go to the location and do the shoot. They later send us the pictures for post-production. We offered these services to a couple who did a shoot in Maldives.”

Couples also go to the lengths of shooting cinematic video shoots with elaborate choreography and a team.

Sarvanan, Oh Yes Events, says, “We are wedding planners and organise wedding packages for couples. We recently did a video shoot in Athirapally for a couple. Their concept was nature and so we shot in the forests of Athirapally. Another couple wanted a filmy video shoot. They hired 10 – 15 dancers and taught them the dance choreography and we shot it like a music video. The total project cost was Rs 8.5 lakhs.”

The wedding business has become one of the booming businesses post pandemic with every niche of it doing really well.