Weddings in India are festive occasions and usually celebrated with extensive decorations, color, music, dance, outfits and rituals that depend on the community, region and religion of the bride and the groom, as well as their preferences.[1] India celebrates about 10 million weddings per year,[2] of which about 80% are Hindu weddings.
A daughter's marriage can often be the most costly event in the life of an Indian family, with some estimate indicating that families spend more than six times a family's annual income on the wedding.[3] Most of these costs go towards dowries and the wedding celebration.[3] Scholars have characterized these expenditures as being strongly shaped by social norms and by desires to signal social status.[3]
- ^ Sari nights and henna parties Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine, Amy Yee, The Financial Times, May 17, 2008
- ^ India's love affair with gold Archived 2013-08-08 at the Wayback Machine, CBS News, February 12, 2012
- ^ a b c Bloch, Francis; Rao, Vijayendra; Desai, Sonalde (2004). "Wedding Celebrations as Conspicuous Consumption: Signaling Social Status in Rural India". The Journal of Human Resources. 39 (3): 675–695. doi:10.2307/3558992. ISSN 0022-166X. JSTOR 3558992.