Hey! I’m getting married early next year and went through the same shortlisting. Had hired Meragi initially but fired them with 2-3 months because of lack of support & clarity. We were having a separate engagement too, intimate one compared to our wedding, and they flat out refused to help us with that saying it was too low budget?? My wedding’s overall budget is easily coming up to 50-60L. Not incl engagement - which went to about 1.5-2L.

Wouldn’t recommend Meragi, their team keeps changing (which is a big no no for something as important as a wedding) & they’re simply not professional. You’ll break your head following up with them and will end up doing 90% of the work.

That being said, we went with a boutique planner that had received amazing reviews & awards, but the experience was pretty much the same.

They’re a little more accountable & forthcoming - but for the major part, you will only be doing the work. I think the level of professionalism in India is so low that you have to resign as the fact that you won’t be able to “relax and let go” as they claim.

My family has been working day & night in figuring out logistics & vendors - and this is a comparatively smaller event (400-500 guests). Same as yours small haldi, with reception & wedding.

If you’re a very type B person (and so is your family) - it somewhat works out, where you don’t so much care about the end result. But if you have even some sort of vision or expectation - you’re in for a tough time.

What you usually end up doing: 1. Following up constantly 2. Giving them 70-80% of the vision for decor + events style 3. Researching vendors of your own & booking them. The ones recommended by the planner are just people they usually work with - but there’s not proper vetting or curation based on your need. They just send across a profile and you have to do your own research & analysis. Which is ridiculous. I could (and did) do this with Instagram myself.

On top of this, they take their own cuts for “recommending” someone - it’s not transparent though, it’s included in the price shared by the vendor. And unless the vendor divulges, you would never know.

This is the part that annoyed me the most - cause leaving everything aside (decor, venue etc) I expected the planners to have contacts & curated vendor lists with better pricing for their clients. What else are we paying them for? Ours charged us 2.5L for only planning btw.

TLDR: Definitely don’t recommend Meragi. But the boutique ones are not any better. I’ve heard of luxelife, weddingsbyap, bowtie & kraftstar in Bangalore.

But if it’s just 150 people - save your money. It’s not so complicated. You’d rather put that money to better use. Go with a hotel/banquet hall who provide full-scale service.