Adnan and Abrar: Climbing stairs of success in wedding planning industry
Post by on Sunday, September 12, 2021
Weddings are an important affair of an individuals' life and as such demands meticulous planning. To stay stress-free, the concept of wedding planner is gaining currency in Kashmir. It allows families to hire a professional help for arranging logistics necessary for the successful execution of a wedding. In today’s edition of Rising Kashmir, we are highlighting two event management companies who have created a niche in the marketing for organizing and executing top-notch weddings in Kashmir.
Zool Production:
Adnan Mohammad Mattoo (30) from Srinagar has done his graduation in Journalism and Mass Communication. From a popular guitarist of Kashmir to the owner of a big event management company “Zool Production” Adnan had his fair share of struggles.
Adnan’s biggest dream since his childhood was to establish an event management company in Kashmir.
“It was a dream from the beginning. I wanted to plan weddings in Kashmir because we had nothing like that in our valley. The concept of wedding planners was nowhere amongst us so I wanted to add it to our wedding setups.”
As a wedding planner it has been a challenge for Adnan because he feels by planning a wedding for a couple is to make their long dream come true.
Adnan, who has been a popular musician of Kashmir, was always intrigued with how the event management companies used to plan everything and take care of every small detail.
“I was a guitarist and had performed in many events as an artist, so that is actually how I got an idea about setting up my own wedding planning company,” said Adnan.
Initially, Adnan had no idea about how to execute this plan in the valley as he had no experience in planning events.
“I went to Delhi, and I joined a local wedding planning company for some months and I tried gaining some experience in the field.”
Adnan has his own set of principles, he believes in starting from scratch.
“I started from doing labour work, I believe nobody becomes a big shot overnight,” he said.
He belonged to a financially sound family and money has never been an issue for him.
After coming back from Delhi, Adnan joined a local tent house in Kashmir as a labour and used to get Rs 500 per day.
“After 4 years of labour I became the event designer for the same company. I used to design set ups for different weddings and it was a great feeling to me because I was finally coming close to my dream.”
Adnan started working like this because he wanted to learn how to execute things in a proper manner.
“There however, have been many challenges as it is such a difficult journey and nobody supports you to venture out into this kind of business.”
When Adnan started his wedding planning company the biggest challenge for him was to make people understand their work.
“People here were not able to differentiate between local tent houses and wedding planners. But with the advent of time things started running smoothly,” said Adnan.
For Adnan the best part of being a wedding planner is to meet a lot of different people.
“You get to know a lot of people, their taste in designing, we get to explore a lot and that’s what makes our work even more interesting and enjoyable,” he said.
From dark to pastel, Adnan's company has designed set ups in every colour.
“Everyone has a different taste and to be able to execute their dreams into reality brings peace to us.”
Zool production plans things according to people's budget.
“Our work is to enhance the beauty in a wedding and to utilize their money in a proper way, giving them lasting, beautiful memories,’ said Adnan.
Adnan’s company plans weddings in every part of Kashmir.
“As of now we plan weddings in Kashmir only but we are working on taking projects in other states of India as well as we get offers from Jammu, Delhi and Bangalore.”
“People outside the valley want to franchise our company. In future it will provide franchises and will work all over India as well,” said Adnan.
Zool production has been into business for 3 years now and is providing employment to 80 people including girls.
Izzbann Events:
Abrar Ajaz (27) from Srinagar is an MBA graduate and owner of another wedding planning company by the name of “Izzbann Events”.
Though Izzbann events is a complete event management firm and provides all the event solutions ranging from wedding to corporate function and informal parties. But also specializes in planning weddings.
Abrar started Izzbann Events in 2017, after he felt the need of an event planner in the Kashmiri weddings.
“The family members don’t get time to enjoy the wedding as they try to coordinate with all the vendors themselves,” said Abrar.
The idea to set up a wedding planning company was to make weddings in Kashmir more enjoyable.
He believes challenges are everywhere, but in this industry they never stop.
“Mostly we have to upgrade our inventory regularly which requires heavy capital and then there is the issue some planners or vendors do the wedding planning at much lesser price, which disturbs the market and is also the biggest challenge for us,” he said.
For Abrar the most interesting thing about his line of business is that he gets to see new places, meet new people , share experience and take part in the various events.
“Also being in the competitive market we have to give new ideas and innovative solutions to our clients which help us to remain updated.”
Apart from Kashmir Abrar planned two weddings in Jammu this year.
He said, in our industry no matter how many personnel we have, we still feel the need to engage more people, but then we have to manage with the limited personnel, keeping in view the budget.
Covid-19 has been a tough time for everybody and the same has been the case with the wedding planners as well.
Most of the events were either postponed or cancelled, and the others which were as planned, they had to take precautions and follow all the necessary SOPs.
