Bangalore to Malaysia for weddings and honeymoons

While people from West are coming to India to get married in ‘desi’ style, many Indians want to get married in Malaysia which witnessed 30 to 40 weddings in 2011.

Last November, Malaysia witnessed the largest wedding and the families were from Bangalore.
“In recent times, Malaysia has become a luxury travel destination for weddings and honeymoons. We’ve had close to 40 weddings in the country in 2011,” said Manoharan, director of Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board. He was speaking at a road show held recently in Bangalore to promote Malaysia.

Seeing this trend, the government of Malaysia has started service for this niche sector. “We’ve groups in hotels and resorts who are trained in Indian weddings. They help in decors, dress, mock trials and other rituals. We’ve trained them specifically for these sectors,” he said.

The country’s beach resorts are the choice for many weddings.
“Since they take packages for four or six days, the flight operators, along with hotels owners, give them a big discount for a wedding with 200 to 300 guests. A small wedding in Malaysia costs about Rs50lakh in all,” said Mohd Izal bin Mahd Nor, director of Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board.

Calling it a great way to bond, he said: “When a wedding is held in your own country, the guests come, wish the couple, have their meal and leave. But when it is held abroad, they are together for four days and nights, having all three meals together and partying and shopping together. They also bond well. The family comes closer.”

However, the wedding organisers prefer to take some of the ingredients to Malaysia as they want to have authentic preparations for the weddings.

“Even though we’ve a large number of Indians in our country, many prefer to get spices from here. We encourage that as we want to serve them better. The largest wedding held in Malaysia so far was in November last year and that was from Bangalore,” Manoharan said.
There are over 14 flights from Bangalore and over 32 flights from other south Indian cities to Malaysia.