From Production to Palaces, the World’s Leading Wedding Brands Explain Why They’re Building Toward India
New Delhi [India], September 29: As the countdown to Destination Wedding Planners (DWP) Congress 2026 continues, the numbers tell one part of the story: 350-plus delegates, three days at the Fairmont Udaipur Palace, and the first edition of the Congress ever held in India, after 12 years of being hosted in four different continents. The sponsors and partners building toward it tell the rest. Across production houses in France and Italy, resort brands in Jordan and Indonesia, tourism boards in the Gulf, and some of Japan and India’s most storied hospitality names, a similar note keeps surfacing in conversation: India isn’t being added to the luxury wedding map. It’s beginning to redraw it.
“India has always celebrated with extraordinary scale and emotion, and today that is converging with a new generation of luxury — one that is more experiential, highly personalised and increasingly global. Couples are no longer simply choosing a venue; they are looking for a destination capable of becoming the stage for an entire celebration.
That is where Fairmont has a very natural place. Fairmont has long been associated with grand celebrations and landmark occasions around the world, and Fairmont Udaipur Palace brings that legacy to one of India’s most compelling wedding destinations.” – Vishrut Gupta, General Manager, Fairmont Udaipur Palace
Technical production has been quietly globalising for years, and Udaipur is where that trajectory and India’s own moment now meet. “India is one of the most exciting markets for us right now. The scale, the sense of celebration, and the demand for high-level technical production — immersive light design, kinetic scenography and flawless audiovisual production — are exactly where our expertise lies. For Novelty, India is also important because Indian families celebrating in Europe or the Middle East are already among the clients we serve. Being in Udaipur is about building that bridge in reverse,” says Stéphane Paoli, Director of Business Development at Groupe Novelty, whose network already spans Paris, Dubai and Doha. Florian Dewitte of Deco Flamme Live Production, who regularly builds for Indian clients on the French Riviera, sees this edition as a chance to flip that relationship: “This year, DWP allows us to reverse the point of view and meet them on their soil. Beyond business opportunities, this is what makes DWP Udaipur valuable to us. Build relationships, interact with professionals from all over the world, and meet many of our Indian partners and clients at their home.” Privitera Eventi’s Massimo Privitera puts the pull in blunter terms, calling DWP “one of the undisputed global benchmarks for top-tier destination wedding professionals. India represents one of the most vibrant and detail-oriented luxury wedding markets in the world. For a brand like Privitera which specializes in structural elegance and bespoke design, the Indian market offers immense potential. Platforms like the DWP Congress are invaluable because they move beyond transactional networking—they foster high-trust, long-term relationships. For Privitera Eventi, meeting international planners face-to-face allows us to demonstrate our technical reliability, problem-solving capabilities, and shared commitment to absolute luxury. The quality of delegates, the curated B2B environment, and the opportunity to expand into dynamic new markets make it an essential appointment for our company.”
For destinations positioning themselves against India rather than in spite of it, the read is less about rivalry than about a widening market. Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority’s Iyad Rasbey notes that “India is an important market for Ras Al Khaimah as Indian couples are increasingly looking for destinations that offer something distinctive for both the wedding and their guests. With DWP Congress being hosted in India for the first time, we have an important opportunity to engage directly with the country’s leading wedding planners and industry partners, build stronger relationships and demonstrate why Ras Al Khaimah can offer Indian couples a different kind of luxury destination wedding experience. We are also adapting how we present Ras Al Khaimah to the Indian wedding market. Rather than focusing only on venues, room inventory and facilities, we tell the broader destination story and show planners how they can build a complete, multi-day celebration around it,” pointing to demand his emirate is actively building around. Jordan’s Ayla Oasis, having hosted the Congress itself in 2025, offers a preview of what that translates to on the ground: Managing Director Sahl Dudin recalls welcoming “more than 500 wedding professionals from over 70 countries” and calls the resulting relationships “the real value of platforms such as DWP.” Shotaro Kasa, COO of Japan’s Value Management Inc., frames his return in similar terms — an opportunity ” For us, DWP Congress is a valuable opportunity to connect directly with leading wedding planners and industry professionals from around the world, exchange perspectives, and build meaningful long-term relationships to communicate not only the beauty of Japan, but also the diversity of experiences that can be found beyond its most internationally recognized destinations.” In Bali, The Ungasan Clifftop Resort is charting a parallel course through intimacy rather than scale. “We continue to evolve by combining highly personalized celebrations with the natural beauty and cultural character of Bali,” says Anindita Widyasari, Assistant Director of Weddings & Events, describing a focus on “creating celebrations that feel authentic rather than simply beautiful.”
Closer to home, the tone shifts from opportunity to something closer to pride. Prakash and Mahaveer of Prakash Creation, the Congress’s Udaipur-based showcase sponsor, describe the city as the foundation of everything they’ve built: “Udaipur gave us the opportunity to meet the world. DWP gives us the opportunity to take what we have created here back to the world.” Rahul Maini, Cluster General Manager at Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur, ties that local pride to a larger claim about what India now offers the category outright: “A celebration here can be global in its execution yet unmistakably Indian in its soul. India understands celebration at an instinctive level. Few destinations can offer its combination of culture, craftsmanship, cuisine, scale, hospitality and extraordinary settings. Udaipur exemplifies this beautifully. Its palaces, lakes and living traditions provide an emotional and visual richness that cannot simply be created through production. Weddings at the Taj have always been an important part of our legacy.” And Weva Photography’s Rohith Raghuvaran points to a shift already visible in how weddings are being captured, not just staged: “India hosting DWP Congress for the first time reflects something that’s been happening on the ground over the years. Weddings here have grown bigger, more elaborate, far more intentional and the way we capture them had to grow with that. India’s arrival on the global luxury wedding stage is the moment to bring that approach to a much bigger audience.”
“Every sponsor and partner joining us in Udaipur brings a different piece of the luxury wedding world — technical production, hospitality, destination marketing, craftsmanship — and together they’re telling the same story: that India isn’t a trend the industry is testing. It’s a market the industry is building toward.” — Sidh N.C., Director, QnA International
What comes through across production crews, resort operators, tourism boards and photographers alike is less a single argument than a convergence: different corners of the wedding industry arriving at Udaipur from different directions, for different reasons, at the same moment. DWP Congress 2026 is where that convergence becomes visible, three days in which the people who build, host and capture the world’s luxury weddings compare notes on where the industry is actually heading next.
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