{"id":65860,"date":"2026-08-10T17:23:37","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:53:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jodhpurreporter.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/10\/indias-wedding-and-film-industries-meet-for-the-first-time-hyderabad-is-the-venue\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T17:23:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:53:37","slug":"indias-wedding-and-film-industries-meet-for-the-first-time-hyderabad-is-the-venue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jodhpurreporter.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/10\/indias-wedding-and-film-industries-meet-for-the-first-time-hyderabad-is-the-venue\/","title":{"rendered":"India\u2019s Wedding and Film Industries Meet for the First Time. Hyderabad Is the Venue."},"content":{"rendered":"
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WV Connect Season 4, Asia\u2019s largest B2B wedding summit, hoists its flag in Hyderabad ahead of its \u201cWeddings & Films\u201d edition, September 1, 2 & 3, 2026, at Arth Resorts.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], August 10:<\/strong> For decades, India\u2019s wedding and film industries have been borrowing from each other without ever admitting it. The art director who builds a period film set spends his off season building wedding stages. The lighting crew that lit\u00a0a blockbuster song sequence lights a sangeet the following week. Costume designers, fabrication units, cinematographers, choreographers, storytellers. The two industries have quietly shared the same hands for years. What they have never shared is a table.<\/p>\n

That table is now being set in Hyderabad. WV Connect Season 4 hoisted its flag yesterday by\u00a0Kishore Reddy, Chairman & MD of Arth Resorts,<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0in the presence of\u00a0Kumar Raja- Founder, Designs by Raja,Ruchi Pant- Chief Business Officer, Ramoji Film City, Shwetha Sabu Cyril- Indian art director and production designer, Photriya Venky- Celebrity & Wedding Photographer,\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>alongside leaders from the wedding, film and hospitality industries and members of the press. The ceremony opens the countdown to the summit itself, three days this September under a single theme: Weddings & Films.<\/p>\n

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NOT A THEME. A BUSINESS CASE.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is worth being clear about what this is not. It is not film posters at a wedding expo. It is not decor inspired by movie sets. Season 4 is built as a working marketplace between two industries that use identical craft to produce the biggest emotional moments in Indian life.<\/p>\n

Look at how a large Indian wedding is made today. It has a script, a set, a cast, a shoot schedule and a director. It employs production designers, art directors, technicians and editors, many of whom trained in cinema.\u00a0The reverse is equally true. Film wedding sequences are now planned with the rigour of real weddings, and studios increasingly rent their stages, sets and crews to celebrations. The talent already flows both ways. The business relationships never followed.<\/p>\n

WV Connect Season 4 exists to fix that. Over three days, more than 800 delegates from 20+ cities will meet across keynote sessions, WedX talks, curated one-on-one business meetings, speed networking, a Movie Blind Date Night and the WV Awards 2026 gala, the evening that honours the finest of India\u2019s wedding industry. Producers will sit with planners. Studios will sit with event companies. Technicians will discover that their second market has been waiting for them all along.<\/p>\n

WHY HYDERABAD. WHY NOW.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because no other Indian city holds both titles.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s wedding economy is estimated at 130 billion US dollars a year, described by The Economist as the fourth-largest industry in the country. India hosts close to 10 million weddings annually. The 2024 peak season alone saw 4.8 million weddings generate an estimated six lakh crore rupees in economic activity.<\/p>\n

Hyderabad sits at the centre of that boom. The average wedding spend in the city has climbed to 37 lakh rupees, level with Bangalore and ahead of Mumbai, according to leading industry estimates. The Telangana government has publicly committed to building the state into a global wedding destination, with streamlined permits, new venues and dedicated tourism policy behind it.<\/p>\n

Then there is cinema. Telugu films contributed 28% of India\u2019s entire box office in 2021, overtaking Bollywood, and continue to hold roughly a quarter of it. Baahubali 2 remains the highest-grossing film in Indian history. RRR crossed 1,200 crore rupees worldwide and brought home an Academy Award. Hyderabad drives an estimated 60% of Telugu film production and is home to Ramoji Film City, certified by Guinness World Records as the largest film studio complex on earth.<\/p>\n

One city. Both engines. South India\u2019s capital of weddings, and the capital of Indian cinema\u2019s global moment. The convergence was always going to happen here. WV Connect is simply the first to formalise it.<\/p>\n

THE ADVISORY BOARD<\/strong><\/p>\n

WV Connect Season 4 is backed by an Advisory Board that is itself a statement of intent \u2014 a group assembled not for optics, but because no one else in India could have validated this particular idea.<\/em><\/p>\n

For the first time, names from the highest levels of India\u2019s film and wedding industries sit on the same board \u2014 and that convergence is deliberate.\u00a0<\/em>Sabu Cyril<\/strong><\/em>, the lege<\/em>ndary production designer behind Bahubali, Ra.One, and 2.0, represents the pinnacle of what Indian cinema has built in the language of visual spectacle. His presence signals that this conversation is being taken seriously on the film side at the very top.\u00a0<\/em>Kumar Raja<\/strong><\/em>, Founder of Design by Raja and the summit\u2019s Special Advisor and Strategic Alliance Partner, is one of the rare prof<\/em>essionals who has spent two decades working across both worlds \u2014 beginning in film and building a body of work in luxury weddings that has redefined what the craft looks like in India. He is, in the truest sense, the bridge this edition is trying to build.<\/em><\/p>\n

From the wedding and events industry,\u00a0<\/em>Aditya Motwane<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0brings a perspective shaped by years at the forefront of experiential production in India.\u00a0<\/em>Gitika Ganju Dhar<\/strong><\/em>, actor & one of the most respected voices in the business of weddings, is a thought leader whose understanding of where the industry is heading has informed the summit\u2019s programming. On the hospitality side,\u00a0<\/em>Amit Sarin<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0of Black Rock Hotels and\u00a0<\/em>Sumit Ghosh<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0of Arth Resorts bring the infrastructure and institutional weight that an event of this ambition demands. And\u00a0<\/em>Ruchi Pant<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0of Ramoji Film City, the world\u2019s largest integrated film studio complex, located in Hyderabad, completes a board that spans, quite literally, both the sets where India\u2019s greatest films are made and the venues where its most spectacular weddings are held.<\/em><\/p>\n

Together, they represent something that has not existed before in India\u2019s event landscape \u2014 a room where the film industry and the wedding industry look at each other as equals, and ask what they can build together.<\/em><\/p>\n

FROM THE STAGE<\/strong><\/p>\n

N DakshinaaMurthi, Founder & CEO, WV Connect:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea came to me walking\u00a0<\/em>through the sets at Ramoji Film City. They were being rented for weddings. And I kept thinking, I have seen wedding set-ups built to this scale, this craftsmanship, this ambition. And then they are dismantled, and the world never sees them. At the same tim<\/em>e, I was watching film professionals cross into weddings and wedding designers move into film. The crossover was already happening. Nobody was asking what it could become. Hyderabad is the one city where both industries are genuinely world-class, the scale<\/em>\u00a0is matched, the ambition is matched, the talent pool is the same. What these two industries can build together is unlike anything India has seen. WV Connect 2026 exists to ask that question out loud \u2014 and to put the right people in the room to answer it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Kumar Raja, Founder, Design by Raja:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cI have\u00a0<\/em>spent two decades watching these two industries evolve \u2014 and what has always struck me is not just how much they resemble each other, but how much more powerful each could become by formally learning from the other. A wedding planner who understands film p<\/em>roduction design thinks differently about a brief. A film art director who has worked on a high-end wedding understands scale and speed in a way a studio cannot teach. Season 4 is the beginning of that exchange \u2014 structured, intentional, and long overdue.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Shwetha Sabu Cyril, Art Director & Production Designer:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI have worked on film sets and at weddings and the truth is, the brief is almost identical. The same obsession with det<\/em>ail. The same emotional ambition. The same craft. What has been missing is the conversation between the two. The crossover potential is enormous and almost entirely untapped, wedding cinematography is finding a film language of its own, production designer<\/em>s are being sought for wedding installations, and art direction is now at the planning table. This is not a trend. It is the natural next chapter of both industries. WV Connect 2026 is the first room where that chapter gets written and it is long overdue.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Ruchi Pant, Chief Business Officer, Ramoji Film City:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWeddings and films have always been two sides of the same story \u2014 both built on emotion, spectacle, and the art of making moments unforgettable. At Ramoji Film City, we have always believed that these two worlds belong together. When WV Connect approach<\/em>ed us with the vision for the Weddings & Films Edition, it resonated immediately, because this is a concept that is very close to our heart. This is a shared belief. We are proud to power WV Connect 2026 because we see this as the beginning of something th<\/em>e industry has needed for a long time\u2026a formal, creative, and commercial collision between Indian weddings and Indian cinema. Ramoji Film City is where film history has been made for decades. It is only fitting that this historic conversation begins here.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

FOUR SEASONS. FOUR CITIES. ONE PLATFORM.<\/strong><\/p>\n

WV Connect is an intellectual property of Wedding Vows Magazine, India\u2019s leading wedding and lifestyle magazine with nearly 15 years of industry leadership. Since its first edition in Chennai in 2019, followed by Mamallapuram and Jaipur, the platform has hosted globally renowned speakers, partnered with luxury hospitality brands, tourism boards and destination partners, and grown into one of the country\u2019s most credible forums for wedding industry business. Season 4 is its most ambitious chapter yet.<\/p>\n

The flag is up. The countdown has begun.<\/p>\n

Lights. Camera. Shaadi.<\/strong><\/p>\n

ABOUT WV CONNECT<\/strong><\/p>\n

WV Connect is Asia\u2019s largest B2B wedding summit, created by Wedding Vows Magazine. Since 2019 it has united wedding professionals, luxury hospitality brands, tourism boards,\u00a0designers, filmmakers and industry leaders through immersive networking, curated business opportunities and India\u2019s most credible wedding honours. Season 4 will be held September 1, 2 & 3, 2026, at Arth Resorts, Hyderabad, under the theme Weddings & Films.<\/p>\n

If you object to the content of this press release, please notify us at pr.error.rectification@gmail.com. We will respond and rectify the situation within 24 hours.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WV Connect Season 4, Asia\u2019s largest B2B wedding summit, hoists its flag in Hyderabad ahead of its \u201cWeddings & Films\u201d edition, September 1, 2 & 3, 2026, at Arth Resorts. Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], August 10: For decades, India\u2019s wedding and film industries have been borrowing from each other without ever admitting it. The art director […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[631],"class_list":["post-65860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jodhpurreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jodhpurreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jodhpurreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jodhpurreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jodhpurreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jodhpurreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jodhpurreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jodhpurreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jodhpurreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jodhpurreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}