“Weddings are a crucial part of Indian culture. Many among us are born into families who have been saving up for this day since our birth. While the Indian wedding has always been big, the extravaganza has come into play in the past decade or so,” reveals Aarti Manocha, founder of destination planning expert project, Milestones to Memories. The Bandra-based wedding veteran has been in the industry for over 14 years. Her latest project, The Wedding Podcast, invites experts from across fields in the wedding space to break down the once-in-a-lifetime celebration.

Art director Omung Kumar in discussion with Manocha during the episode

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This writer’s favourite episode features Omung Kumar, and his journey from crafting film and TV-show sets, to dream weddings. Best known for directing movies like Mary Kom (2014), and crafting sets for Ishq Vishk (2003), Bigg Boss, IIFA and Filmfare, the design maestro uncovers his venture into the wedding industry, and how he was also the mind behind the elaborate sets created for the pre-wedding celebrations for Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant in Jamnagar. In the episode, he unveils how one can make best of the space available to them — from banquets to open ground — and why TV and movie sets are different from wedding sets. The former is only designed for scenes, but in weddings, sets are focused on the entire experience; every corner plays an important role. 

Aarti Manocha

Another episode features the founders of wedding documentation group, Sam & Ekta, where the duo recalls how their favourite work was collaborating with Farhan Akhtar and Shibani Dandekar for their wedding. In these weekly conversations, catch wedding industry insights from veterans like Sabbash Joseph, Samit Garg, Heena Patel, and others. “The motto of the podcast is Inspiration, Insights, Information, and the vision is to invite experts to break down trends so that it helps the viewers plan their own weddings better. We also wish to show young enthusiasts the growing scope of the industry. Weddings, nowadays, are very structured, and require talent from different fields of creativity and production,” she explains, adding that she plans to release nearly 23 episodes in the first season, which will run till December. There is another season planned for the next year as well which dive deeper into the topic. 

Log on to The Wedding Podcast on YouTube and Instagram