A Design Journalist's Honest Take on Mandap Design This Year
I’ve looked at a lot of mandap photos, Reference boards, past clients, what’s circulating online.
Here’s my honest read on where the trend is actually going, and where I think it’s going wrong.
The good shift: less gold, more texture. The last few years leaned heavily on gold foil and heavy embellishment everywhere. What’s working better this year is restraint, one strong material, teak wood tones, terracotta, natural fiber, doing more than five competing finishes trying to shout at once.
The good shift: floral is getting more architectural. Instead of flowers used purely as color, more setups are using them as structure, actual arches and framing built from marigold and banana leaf, rather than scattered as decoration around a static base.
Where I think it’s going wrong: scale without purpose. A lot of setups are getting taller and wider simply because bigger photographs better, not because the space actually calls for it. A mandap that overwhelms a small balcony doesn’t read as grand. It reads as mismatched!!!
Where I think it’s going wrong: too many trending elements at once — Fairy lights, fresh flowers, fabric drapery, brass accents, and a printed backdrop, all in the same setup, all fighting for attention. Pick two, maybe three. Let them actually be seen!!
My honest recommendation, if you’re planning one this week: choose one material to lead, wood, fabric, or floral, and let the other elements support it rather than compete with it.
The best mandaps I’ve seen this year weren’t the most elaborate ones.
They were the ones where you could tell, immediately, what the one idea behind it was. Journalising Designers Esha Bhandari
