When Nina Bhonsale, 27, married her classmate and boyfriend of two years last October, their parents didn’t hold back on the expenses. “The wedding in Delhi was a lavish affair,” she told DNA, “with a reception in Jaipur”. Though Nina is coy about estimating the final bill, friends estimate that the celebrations and gee-gaws would not have cost less than Rs25 lakh, all told.

Bhonsale doesn’t know this, but she’s done her bit to make the Indian economy grow faster. 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-seven years — and may prolong as far as 2025.

In India, marriage means spending and consumption. Experts say that Rs5-15 lakh are spent on an average in middle class weddings. But even if one assumes a much lower average figure of Rs 1-3 lakh per wedding, the total spending works out to Rs200,000-600,000 crore a year, if you take an average of two crore marriages annually.

At the top end, the country’s marriage spend works out to 12% of India’s GDP of Rs46.7 lakh crore  (in 2008). It is potentially the fourth largest contributor to the economy after agriculture, which added 17.47% to GDP in 2008, and manufacturing, which contributed 22.5%. Services contributed the largest chunk to GDP at 60%.

At the bottom end, the marriage spend is much bigger than finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s Rs1,86,000 crore stimulus package for a recession-hit economy. Nothing to sniff at.

Raamdeo Agrawal, managing director of Motilal Oswal Securities, a stockmarket brokerage house, believes there is gigantic potential for weddings to be India’s engine of consumption. “It is widely known that consumption is going to be a major part of India’s GDP, but what is underestimated is how much of that consumption is going to come from marriages. The number of weddings taking place in a year will be higher over the next five years, as an increasing number of people come of marriageable age,” says Agrawal.

Not surprisingly, online marriage portals like Shaadi.com believe they are sitting on a goldmine. “Marriage is one of the largest expenses for a person. As much as a fifth of the wealth accumulated in a lifetime is spent on it. Currently, most players could comfortably grow at 20% and we are still 5-10 years away from achieving critical mass for the wedding industry as a whole,” says Gourav Rakshit, business head, Shaadi.com, that claims to have over two crore registered users.

According to institutional brokerage CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, 35% of India is below 29 years of age — divided roughly equally between the age groups of 10-19 and 20-29.

While the latter group is already close to hitting the marriage market, the former will do so over 2015-2025. The overall marriage market in a population of 1.2 billion adds up to over 40 crore people over the timespan of the next 15 years.

That’s a lot of business waiting to be milked. Rakshit estimates that companies like Shaadi.com and others rack up revenues of Rs200-250 crore from match-making annually, and believes the business can only get bigger.

Apart from marriage portals, every supplier to the marriage market is salivating at the demographic prospects of the next 10-15 years. A large part of the expenses incurred during a marriage is spent on trousseau and jewellery. This is great news for the Rs75,000 crore gems and jewellery industry.

“There is a strong correlation between the number of marriages that happen and the growth of the industry,” says Sandeep Kulhalli, vice-president, retail and marketing, at Tanishq Jewellery.

Gold has seen an increase in the value of purchases, though there has been a decrease in the actual weight of the jewellery bought due to the sharp rise in the prices of the yellow metal. “Diamonds are picking up as a favourite and we see strong growth in the segment.

On an industry-wide basis, growth is easily in double-digits,” says Kulhalli.

Unlike other industries, recession has little effect on the marriage industry. “Although one might see cuts in some areas of the budget, nobody will cancel a wedding citing the economy,” says Tejal Kadakia, a wedding planner who runs KnotForever, a Mumbai-based wedding management company.

“The planning segment is set to grow exponentially, and there is more scope for it in India than anywhere else as weddings are very elaborate events. People generally save up money and want to spend it on the big day,” says Kadakia.

Unlike automobiles or consumer goods, investors seeking a punt on the marriage market may not get too many options beyond jewellery and gifting companies, but indirect ones abound. “Some of the industries in the listed space that one could use to play this boom are hotels, textiles, and travel companies,” says Raamdeo Agrawal.

“About one crore registered marriages take place in India each year and the number of unregistered ones could be five times that,” estimates Rakshit of Shaadi.com, the online matrimony portal that claims to have two crore registered users.

Rajiv Malik, economist with Macquarie Securities in Singapore, says though he hasn’t looked at this wedding aspect of the economy, the working age population share in India is steadily rising. “As the working age population increases, their saving and spending dynamics tend to be different. Apart from increasing the broader demand for different goods and services, the demographic dividend ends up becoming more potent given the urbanisation trend and the broader shift towards breakdown of the joint family,” Malik said.

Marriages may be made in heaven, but the moolah can be made right here.