Every Indian is accustomed to the joys of an Indian wedding. We've all been to plenty in our lifetime and no doubt some of us will probably have seven to attend this summer alone. With the wedding season well and truly on its way I am here to ask: 'What does an Indian wedding mean in the 21st century?'

Let's start with what we already know. When the words 'Indian' and 'Wedding' are thrown together most people will probably roll their eyes and think of a hundred things which they despise about this most auspicious occasion. Whether it be oily food, Mercedes with red ribbons, or the fact that the damn thing never starts on time, we have all had our fair share of wedding misery, and we're not even the ones tying the knot! Then there's those who only go there for free food, those who only go their to talk, those who only go there to fix up their own offspring, and those who only go there to see what everybody else has wore. Last time I checked, these weddings were not taking place in London, Paris, New York, or Milan, so why do women insist on impressing the glitterati of the fashion world? There's no one there to impress ladies! Then there's the term 'full house'. Not content with inviting uncle, aunty, aunty's best friend, next door neighbour, and man down the road, these Indian weddings insist on inviting the entire world plus ten. In the end the entire world plus twenty turn up and by the time you've finished saying your 'hellos' to people you never even knew existed the wedding ceremony is over with, the bride has left her family, and its time to go home. You also go home disheartened that you never even got a chance to see what the bride was wearing, what her mum was wearing, what her sister was wearing, and what her best friend was wearing.

But now, times have changed. Long gone are the days of hiring out community halls, queuing for six miles to eat off plastic plates, and sitting on plastic chairs in rows of ten as though you were just about to watch a production of a Shakespeare play. Nowadays it's all about being innovative, being exciting and having that extra X-factor. However it seems that in our quest to be different we're all becoming the same, as weddings these days are simply an excuse to display one's wealth. We may have lost that 'typicality', a phrase which is often associated to Indian weddings, but in doing so we have lost the soul. Now we are left with glitz and glamour which may tell us a lot about the bank balance of the bride's father but tells us nothing about what it means to be Indian.

These 'Weddings of the 21st Century' as I like to call them, are all about class, style, and pound signs. Paper invitations are replaced by ones which are carved into wood and marble and sent to your home as a recorded delivery which means two things: 1) You actually have to be home to receive it and 2) If you're not at home to receive it you end up wasting an hour of your life collecting it from the nearest Royal Mail to discover that its only Pritti's wedding, the daughter of that man who lives four houses away. Meanwhile Mercedes Benz' are replaced with Rolls Royce's, Bentleys, or whatever else you could hire out for the day and traditional four-pillared mandaps are replaced by bespoke designs which look like they've actually been pulled out of India and probably were. We get ice sculptures and chocolate fountains. We get seated tables which tell us where to sit.

With glitz and glamour comes pride and reputation. Weddings no longer become an event for all to enjoy but suddenly turn into something which you must beat, something which you must go one up on, and if you can't then it becomes something which you envy. But think about it. Does all this wealth establish that our marriages are set in stone? Does it mean that we will remain happy till the end of time? No. All it says about us is that we're better and richer than Mr.Y. But remember, if we're richer than Mr.Y then there's always a Mr.X out there who's richer than us, and it doesn't take Hollywood or Bollywood to tell us that whatever we can do, someone else can always do better. Wealth does not give a wedding soul. People do that. People who are not too busy thinking about the latest ways to outdo the very wedding they are attending. I say let's go back to the basics. Okay so we may have to eat oily food, we may have to shut our mouths and actually listen to a ceremony for once in our lives, and we may have to risk leg cramp from walking around and saying 'hello' to a hundred people we never knew existed, but that's what it means to be Indian. At least we say 'hello', and when we say it, it should be said with a happy wish and a clean heart, one which is void of envy.

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