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Reuse, Rejoice, Recycle: The Vibrant, Low-Waste Indian Wedding
When the Ambanis — India’s richest family and owners of the country’s largest public company, Reliance Industries — started a five-month-long celebration of their son’s wedding in March 2024, it caused a media frenzy. Featuring cruises on the Mediterranean, concerts by artists like Andrea Bocelli and Justin Bieber, and a Mumbai venue dressed up to look like the narrow alleys of Varanasi, the celebrations cost a rumored $600 million.
Around the same time, about 750 miles away, Shiv Pujan Tiwari took a loan of Rs 10 lakh (under $1,200) for his daughter’s wedding at a rate of 15 percent interest from a moneylender. “The bank would have given me a better rate, but I have no collateral,” says the marginal farmer. “My daughter is happily married now, but I’ll be paying off the debt for the next several years.”
A Goonj wedding. Courtesy of Goonj
India’s wedding industry ranks second globally, behind only China. But parallel to the stories of fairytale brides, exotic locations and romantic rituals runs the narrative of the “other” India, which people like Tiwari inhabit. Societal pressures, as well as aspirations fueled by media coverage of big fat Indian weddings, compel parents to spend an average of about $15,000 on a celebration. Many, like Tiwari, have no option but to take high-interest private loans, given that the national per capita income is about $1,260. “Wedding traditions today are driven by the rising aspirations of Indians, fueled partly by the 24/7 media coverage of high-profile events like the Ambani wedding,” Magsaysay awardee Anshu Gupta says. The founder of the Delhi-based NGO Goonj, which works on poverty and disaster relief across India, he has observed, over decades, how wedding expenses lead to debt traps that are hard to recover from.
But there is good news. Across the country, new and old ways to share, recycle and reuse wedding clothes and other paraphernalia are slowly changing mindsets — while keeping the exuberance and joy of Indian weddings alive.
“Circularity is a modern buzzword,” Gupta says. “But it has always been around in India.” For example, charities and even individuals would sponsor mass weddings for families who could not afford the expense, a practice that continues to this day. Different castes often had banks of shared resources like crockery, mattresses and tents, which only their members could use when needed. In fact, bartan (utensil) banks are still found across the country.
A bride-to-be admires a Goonj wedding dress. Courtesy of Goonj
Unfortunately, these thrifty practices have become somewhat tainted by the stigma of poverty. “I didn’t want my community to know that I didn’t have enough money to get my only daughter married,” Tiwari, who chose not to participate in a mass wedding or use the local bartan bank, says. Instead, he discreetly rented his daughter’s bridal outfit for about $75, a considerable expense, but one-fifth the cost of buying one. With the loan amount, he bought some gold jewelry, gifts for the groom and his parents, and financed a wedding party for 500 guests. All this forced the small-scale farmer to descend into what Gupta refers to as “the financial hell caused by high consumption rural weddings.”
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But Goonj (which means “echo” in Hindi) has reimagined this traditional sharing culture. Since 1999, the NGO has collected items that the urban rich no longer have use for, and repurposed them into products that incentivize the rural poor into taking community action. Gupta cites an example: When providing disaster relief, Goonj offers clothes, blankets and other necessities not as dole, but as payment for clearing flooded or damaged areas in the vicinity. “This way, people get what they need, when they need it, without compromising their dignity,” he says. “And urban castoffs become tools for rural change.”
To reduce rural debt, Gupta decided to apply the Goonj model to weddings and other large-scale celebrations.
On a balmy November morning, trucks offload cartons of new and used clothes, household utensils, school supplies and more at Goonj’s collection center in Delhi. These are sorted into piles of wedding dresses; silk, satin and embroidered fabrics; cosmetics; dainty slippers and more. Next door, 42-year-old Vinda Devi matches colors and patterns to create wedding lehengas, skirts.
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