REMEMBER the shaadis and kalyanams of yore where you pretty much knew what to expect?

The pomp and show of the various religious and social ceremonies, the colour of the sari or the lengha, the amount of jewellery, the make-up style, the kind of food and where the wedding was going to take place (usually the temple wedding hall or gurdwara) and the mile-long guest list... these were all pretty much a given, with tradition taking centrestage.

Not any longer. Today’s Indian weddings in Singapore have morphed with the times as brides and grooms – most of them Blackberry-toting, economically independent couples – take over the organisational reins from their parents and fuse tradition with their Western and Bollywood- influenced visions of what their big day should be like.

Industry players say while the older generation – parents and grandparents – still want the big, fat Indian wedding, couples on the road to matrimony want it on their own terms.

Some have transformed simple temple wedding halls into venues with the grand feel of hotel ballrooms; eschewed the reds, maroons and pinks – colour standards for most Indian bridal outfits – to include blues, yellows, greens, purples as well as Western-style gowns made out of Indian fabrics for their receptions; passed over the heavy traditional kanchipuram silks for embroidered silk saris; ploughed the Internet for intricate henna designs that snake up to their shoulders; and even demanded Bollywood-inspired backdrops for their reception.

One, an almost exact replication of a wedding scene from a hit Hindi film, cost about $60,000 to recreate.

When it comes to tying the knot today, it seems Indian couples are limited only by their imagination and the stretch of the purses.

tabla! tiptoes down the aisle, pulls back the Swarovskied-veil and checks out the current trends in the Indian wedding market. -tabla!