SEARCHING WEDDING PLANNERS? THEN WHAT YOU ARE WAITING? READ AND CALL THEM!

The arrangement in Indian weddings is not a simple task. From selecting the destination for a wedding, designing the outfit, buying jewelry to finalizing the décor, a large number of professions are involved in getting two people married. One of them is photography and wedding films_.

No Indian wedding today is complete without photographers and videographers. They are the ones who make us live the moments again and again via photos and videos. They don’t just cover the day of the wedding but are involved in every stage of the celebrations — right from capturing intricate moments of the event to presenting the bride and grooms.

With such ideas in mind, a photography startup is WEDDINGNAMA, founded by a husband-wife duo ANKITA ASTHANA and AKASH AGARWAL in 2013. The business was born out of a couple of passion for travel and photography.

THE JOURNEY

Ankita, with her Master's degree in Photography from NID, Ahmedabad, was experimenting with fashion photography, doing shoots for lifestyle magazines, and dabbling with product photography. Her first wedding photography assignment happened by chance when a senior from her college requested her to shoot his wedding in 2012. And that was just the beginning. With an outpouring of references, wedding shoots were lining up.

“What began as assignments meant for a solo photographer soon started taking the shape of a large business because of overseas assignments that only a big team could handle.”

In 2010, the couple moved to Mumbai from Delhi. Akash, in the meantime, started working in the banking sector after completing his MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur. As the demand for Ankita’s shoots grew, Akash, who was also passionate about photography and filmmaking, made the switch from trading derivatives in the banking sector and came on board to build a full-scale company. At the same time, his former CEO was calling him for meetings, but this time it was to discuss her daughter’s wedding. Ankita and Akash’s business claims to have grown 10x since it was launched, even though they restrict the number of weddings to 20 a year. The company has been self-funded and has remained self-sustainable.

To give traditional Indian weddings a modern avatar, WeddingNama set out to introduce new trends in photography and film business such as drone photography, exotic destination weddings, etc.

“To date, the team filmed in places like France, Italy, Scotland, Turkey, the UK, the US, Mexico, Kenya, France, Cyprus, the UAE, Oman, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and most parts of India.“

AWARDS TO THE STARTUP

• Great Indian Wedding Award (GIWA).
• WOW ASIA AWARDS.
• International awards by Junebug Weddings, Fearless Photographers, ISPWP.
• Work exhibited in London and Brazil.
• In publications of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, NYTimes, Huffington Post.
• WeddingNama has worked for many popular figures across industries including Zaheer Khan and Sagarika Ghatge, Chanda Kochhar, Rajan Raheja (Chairman, Raheja Group), Neeta Lulla (Bollywood Fashion Designer), among others.

WHY WEDDING NAMA? MARKET VALUE?

As per a 2017 KPMG report, the Indian wedding market is estimated to be $40-50 billion in size. It is only second to the US in terms of the market size. With wedding photography being a crowded space, the founders say that there is a big need for the startup to differentiate itself from the others.

“We are constantly thinking of new ideas and ways to capture love stories. Also, in this business, it is very easy to copy the work of another. So, we have to constantly reinvent ourselves,”

Says Akash.

WeddingNama was among the first in the industry to organize the wedding photography and filming business by launching a setup that included in-house cinematographers, photographers, and editors.

“We wanted consistent quality and we give an ample amount of time to post-production, which is usually neglected. We pay a lot of attention to details and personalize and customize every single thing for our couples”