Gold Is Up 59%. Indian Brides Are Buying Lighter, Not Less

India bought 75 tonnes of gold jewellery in the second quarter of 2026, down 15.4% on the same quarter last year, according to the World Gold Council. Spending over the same period rose 34% to ₹1,132 billion, or about $12 billion.

Both numbers are true at once because domestic gold prices sat roughly 59% higher year on year. Families are not stepping back from gold; they are getting substantially less of it for more money.

The Council report, written by its India research head Kavita Chacko and published on 30 July, describes wedding and festival buying as "relatively resilient" while noting that elevated prices are pushing consumers towards lighter-weight, lower-carat and studded pieces. That is the trousseau quietly changing shape: fewer heavy sets, more designs where the stones carry the visual weight and the gold does less of the work.

At the sharper end, the substitution is more complete. Al Jazeera reported in April on families across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Kashmir turning to gold-plated ornaments and so-called one-gram gold — base metal under a thin coat of 24-carat — for wedding sets. It quoted a gold-plated bridal set in Pakistan at 40,000 to 60,000 rupees, against hundreds of thousands for the real thing.

For anyone buying now, the practical consequence is that the old planning heuristic no longer holds. A budget set aside a year ago against a weight target will not meet it. Deciding the weight first and letting the price follow is how most families have always shopped for bridal gold, and at these levels it is the decision most likely to break a budget.