The lavish Indian weddings are necessarily “By Invitation”, but one needs to beef up the security to a higher level so as to keep gatecrashers at bay. This is achieved through special electronic chips that are embedded inside the wedding invitation cards. When the guests arrive at the venue, they are required to swipe their cards at the entrance to enter the venue.
Consider the Scenario
A well dressed couple turns up at the wedding venue. The bride’s family is customarily stationed to welcome the guests and they do not question the identity of their newly arrived guests. Even if they do not recognize some people, they easily assume them the groom’s guests. In Indian tradition questioning, the identity of the guests at the entrance is considered a humiliation and if they turn out to be groom’s relatives, then this is close to performing a cardinal sin.
Security
In all of this, the security of the venue, the people and jewelry worth millions is at stake. Two perfect strangers can create hoodlum at the wedding and can even do away with precious wedding stuff. In addition to the food and drinks, jewelry and cash are also on ostentatious display in a typical Big Fat Indian Wedding.
The mechanism used
The technology used in these special wedding cards is either that of day-to-day credit cards or the bar code scanning mechanism used at major shopping centers. The choice of technology depends upon the preference of the patrons. The swipe cards look more sophisticated than the bar code based invitation cards.
The Cost factor
In a wedding where millions are spent on food and decoration alone, spending 25 to 50 Grand on electronically swiped wedding invitation cards should not be a very big deal. There was a time when gatecrashers just targeted the lavish reception food. Nowadays they easily do away with the precious jewels and other gifts at the wedding, which will be far bigger price to pay than the cost of high security swipe/scan wedding cards.
No more a Celebrity Privilege
This time around when Katy Perry and Brand Russell used the security-chip embedded invitation cards for their guests, the media reported it in bold. For more than half a decade, these special wedding cards have been in use to keep fans and paparazzi at bay in high profile celebrity weddings. Nowadays people with non-celebrity status are also sending these special invites, so as to prevent strangers from entering the venue.