No vacancy for marriages in the city

As there aren't many auspicious days after June 3, and with 'Muudam' and the month of 'Aashadam' looming over, the city is running wedding crazy. Most wedding halls in the city are booked, and people are running from hall to hall in disappointment. Sadly, there is no vacancy until June 3, though Hyderabad has 10,000 function halls.

Most wedding halls have 12-hour slots and charge accordingly. Posh wedding halls are charging a hefty sum, with extra fare for A/C and use of generators. Wedding halls charge anything between Rs 100,000 and Rs 300,000 depending on their location and popularity.

There are instances when three weddings were solemnised in one day at a wedding hall in Dilsukhnagar. And there are reports that the marriage parties are asked to rush through the ceremonies, though they were not happy about it. But nobody wants a fight or some unpleasant things to happen on a wedding day.

At Amberpet, the residents of an apartment were asked to park their vehicles on the road, as the parking place was used as a make-shift venue. This wouldn't have been a news, but for the fact that the vehicles parked on the road created a traffic jam.

Speaking about the`no vacancy' and busy wedding season, an official at Noma function hall at Nacharam says, 'We have five halls and each hall has two venues, and we are full till June 3.

Co-or dinating the services is a big problem; we are asking the marriage parties to strictly adhere to the time, but to be fair to them l with all the hustle and bustle it takes an hour or two more.'

When asked about the time required to prep up the venue for the next use, he said, 'we usually need two to three hours to clean up and rearrange for the next wedding. In this busy season we are not getting that. This usually happens in the peak season. It is hectic this year be cause of `Muudam' and lack of `muhurtas' till early September because of aashadham.'

With most marriage halls giving a 12 hour slot, there are few function halls like Anupuram Community Hall which gives t 24-hour slots. Speaking about the peak, Season, Kumaraswamy, manager of the community hall, says, 'It's hectic this year with marriages galore. Lack of `muhurats' till September, all halls in the city are booked.'

With marriage parties being literally whisked out, a disgruntled marriage party at Dilsukhnagar says, 'We were forced to rush through the ceremonies, and whisked out after the ceremonies, it is a real bad experience.'

Some famous function halls in Secunderabad are Imperial Gardens, Raja Rajeshwari, Tivoli and Viceroy.

Vithika Agarwal, a wedding planner, said, 'Since marriage halls are booked till their maximum capacity now, we offer different options like hotels, discos and such other options to the clients if the date of the wedding is very important to them.

During the off season we do social events like housewarming parties and wedding anniversaries. People generally book the halls five to six months in advance for marriages.