The big fat Punjabi wedding industry is in knots over the escalation tensions between India and Pakistan and chaotic state election demonstrations, reports Indian media.

Until this wedding season, The Punjabi wedding market fueled by overseas-based Indians or NRIs fueled much of the country’s a $11 billion wedding industry, which was growing at 25 percent a year.

“NRIs do not want campaigning nuisance while they are here for a wedding. The tension with Pakistan means the season is anyway off to a bad start,” says Amarjit Gill, who runs Jazz Car Rental near Ludhiana.

His business. unique to the Punjabi wedding industry has become a casualty local politics and international tensions because there are no takers for his high end luxury cars, which are hired as status symbols to bring brides home from weddings

The Ludhiana Moga highway is dotted with forecourts full of top end cars, decked with flowers and wedding finery and ready for hire, he said.

The rates, according to businessman Joginder Singh, range from Rs 18,000 (about C$350) for an Audi A4, Rs26,000 (C$510) for an Audi A6 or a BMW 5 Series or Bentley to Rs 40,000 (C$785) for a Lincoln Limousine and (C$982) for a Jaguar XE.

Now with a bit of negotiation and the price across models is almost halved within minutes.

“You can now take a Mercedes Benz E Class for Rs 8,000 (C$157). I can’t really go lower than this,” said Singh, who has only one booking for October so far.

 “NRIs come to Punjab from Canada and the US from October to February for weddings and they hire these high end cars as dolis to impress the bride’s side. But this year, due to the tension with Pakistan, the NRIs have not come yet, maybe anticipating trouble.”

Last year, NRI traffic was not there as the atmosphere was disturbed by incidents of desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh Holy Book),” Singh says.

Audi is a hit in the villages — the people like the four ring emblem rather than the star logo of Mercedes Benz, which has become commonplace, say the owners of rental companies. The Jaguar has also become popular, thanks to the hit Punjabi song ‘Kudi Kehendi Pehlan Jaguar Le Lio’, though at Rs40,000 50,000, it is an expensive proposition. But sharp discounts are there to be had. “You can have a Jaguar for Rs25,000,” Avtar Singh quickly offers.

He explains that NRI visits to Punjab are generally cyclical — high one year, low the next. “But this time it will be particularly bad as there was no traffic last year due to tensions in Punjab and this year is expected to be no different.

Tensions between India and Pakistan have been rising since last month, when 18 Indian soldiers were killed by a militant strike on an army base in India-administered Kashmir. India blamed the attack on Pakistan-based militants and within days launched a retaliatory “surgical strike” on alleged militant bases on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control, the de facto border between the two countries.

Pakistan has denied any complicity in the militant attack on the Indian army base and has also denied India’s “surgical strike” ever took place, but that has hardly helped matters, with fears rising over a full-fledged conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Adding to this are noisy and sometimes violent election campaigns as Punjab goes to the polls early next year.

Despite the lower business in Punjab this wedding season, others in the industry said that irrespective of economic downturns and political challenges, weddings remain a stable business as it is a once-in-a-lifetime event for most people in India.

A person, in India, spends one fifth of the wealth accumulated in a lifetime on a wedding ceremony.  The average spending on a wedding in Punjab can vary between 23,000 USD to 100, 000 USD, according to local wedding planners.

Considering the demographic dividend, it would not be wrong to assume, with half of India's population being under 29 years of age, the marriage market is set to boom like never before over the next five to ten years.

There are several ancillary markets and segments benefiting from this boom, like Gold and diamond jewellery, apparels, decoration, makeup etc. The wedding planning industry is also booming. In Jan, 2015, the wedding planning industry was pegged at $ 40 billion.

Currently, the country has a population of around 1.25 billion and considering an average family with five members, there are around 250million families in India. With about one marriage per family every 20 years, the country averages roughly 10 million marriages every year. An average 30 to 40 grams of gold is spent in every marriage across the country, thus the total consumption of gold comes between 300 to 400 tonnes annually.

The wedding market in India (One crore is 10 million)

Indian wedding market worth: Rs 100,000 to Rs 110,000 crore

Gold and diamond jewellery market worth: Rs 60,000 crore

Apparel market (wedding) worth: Rs 10,000 crore

Durable goods market worth: Rs 30,000 crore

Hotel and other wedding related market worth: Rs 5,000 crore market

Pandal and venue decoration market: Worth Rs 10,000 crore

Favorite honeymoon destinations: Goa, Jaipur and Udaipur

Goa wedding cost: Between Rs 1 crore to 1.5 crore

Jaipur wedding cost: 1 to 2 crore

Wedding cost in metropolitan cities: Between Rs 25 lakh to 70 lakh

Wedding invitation card market : Worth Rs 10,000 crore annual

Bridal Mehendi market in India: Worth Rs 5000 crore

Item-wise expenses on Indian weddings

Dinner cost: Rs 700 to 1000 per person

Pandal decoration cost: Rs 10,000

Bridal designer saree/lenhga cost: Between Rs 10,000 to 50,000

Designer shervani cost: Rs 15,000 to Rs 40,000

Wedding invite cost: Rs 500 to Rs 1500 per card

Bridal make up cost: Between Rs 5000 to Rs 50,000

Bridal Mehndi cost: Between Rs 1000 to Rs 5000