25 November,2010 08:24 AM IST | | Vivek Sabnis
Romance of outdoor weddings gets rained out as Met prediction of more torrential showers in muhurt-heavy month forces lawns and gardens to closet guests in pandals
Lavish outdoor wedding plans in the city have been dashed by the untimely November rain.
More than 50 outdoor lawn venues in the city have had to make alternative arrangements such as putting up pandals with tin roof plates this wedding season.
The Indian Meteorological Department has predicted more rainfall over the next three days. With this month having 12 muhurts, or auspicious occasions for weddings, open lawns were heavily booked for the wedding season, many of them six months in advance.
The entire month of November has witnessed heavy rainfall; even Diwali was a wet affair.
Outdoor wedding venues said bookings were becoming a casualty in the scenario.
"The number of wedding bookings for open lawns has drastically gone down," said Yogita Ghangurde, manager of Gharkul Lawns on DP Road in Karve Nagar. "There have been 12 marriages this month at our lawn and 80 per cent of the clients have asked us to make alternative arrangements."
A similar situation was reported at Krishna Sunder Garden. Varsha Gaikwad, manager of Krishna Sunder Garden, said over 50 per cent of the parties were asking for alternative arrangements at the garden in case of rain during the wedding.
"We covered as much of our venue with a pandal as we could, and that is an added expenditure. It also ruins the decoration," she said.u00a0
Mandar Chitale, treasurer of Pune Pandals Association (PPA), said the body was ensuring all open lawns were covered.
"Our association has taken up the task of covering all open lawns because of the extended rainy season. The work of putting up pandals with tin roofs is going to go on till the next month, considering the untimely rainfall is going to continue," said Chitale.
Vijaykumar Panditrao, who is organising a wedding party on December 11 for his son Shrinath at the Bombay Sappers lawn in Khadki, said he was taking no chances.
"The place has some covered area, but we are also asking for some part of the lawn to be covered with a pandal as a precaution," said Panditrao. "There should not be any inconvenience to our guests."
Ashok Dingankar, member of Catering Association, said they had a rough time this November as the food arrangements at lawns had to change 12 times. "Untimely rain of this scale in November is happening for the first time in the past 25 years. This will affect the next year November booking also," said Dingankar.
