India Held Fewer Weddings Last Season and Spent ₹60,000 Crore More

The Confederation of All India Traders estimated 46 lakh weddings across India between 1 November and 14 December 2025, generating ₹6.50 lakh crore in business. The year before, it counted 48 lakh weddings generating ₹5.90 lakh crore.

Fewer weddings, more money. On CAIT own figures that works out at roughly ₹14.1 lakh of business per wedding in 2025 against ₹12.3 lakh in 2024 — a rise of about 15% per wedding in a single season. That arithmetic is ours, not CAIT.

The longer series makes the direction clearer still. CAIT recorded 32 lakh weddings and ₹3.75 lakh crore in 2022, then 38 lakh and ₹4.74 lakh crore in 2023, before the volume peak of 48 lakh in 2024. Spending has risen every year regardless of whether the number of weddings did.

Where it goes is itemised: jewellery takes the largest single share at 15%, followed by apparel and sarees at 10% and catering at another 10%. Event management, groceries, electronics and dry fruits take 5% each; photography and videography, the thing couples most often say they regret economising on, accounts for 2%.

Delhi alone accounted for 4.8 lakh weddings and ₹1.8 lakh crore, more than a quarter of the national total from a single city. The survey behind the estimate was conducted between 15 and 25 October 2025 across 75 cities by CAIT research arm, and Praveen Khandelwal, its secretary general and the MP for Chandni Chowk, framed the findings around domestic trade and self-reliance.

The estimate for the coming season is not due until October. But the pattern in the gold market — volumes down, spending sharply up — is the same shape, from an entirely separate dataset. Two independent measures now point at weddings costing more without necessarily becoming grander.