Radical Transparency — Our Pricing Pledge
Policy statement · 24 June 2026
A transparent planning fee. Every vendor invoice shown to you at cost. No hidden commissions, no kickbacks, nothing sitting silently between you and what your wedding actually costs.
This is a stated, dated policy of how Panigrahana Weddings (legal entity Wedvitez Planners Private Limited) prices and bills every wedding we plan. It is not a marketing line. It is how we operate.
Panigrahana charges a transparent planning and design fee for our work. We pass every external vendor cost through to you at cost. You see each vendor's actual invoice. We take no hidden commissions and no kickbacks from any vendor we recommend.
Stated by Panigrahana Weddings · Wedvitez Planners Private Limited · Bangalore · Goa · Kerala
We make this pledge in plain language because the wedding industry, by long-standing convention, does not. The figure a couple is quoted for "the decorator" or "the caterer" is frequently not the figure that vendor charges — and the difference is rarely explained. We believe a family investing in a once-in-a-lifetime event is owed something simpler: the truth about where every rupee goes.
Described factually, without judgement of any individual planner. This is industry-standard practice — and understanding it is the first step to recognising it.
Across the wedding industry it is common, and in many markets simply standard, for a planner to earn a commission or referral fee from the vendors they recommend. The most-cited range is roughly 10% to 40% of the vendor's invoice, varying by category — decor, floral, and catering commissions tend to sit at the higher end; photography and entertainment lower. The couple is almost never told this is happening.
There are two common mechanics. In the first, the vendor inflates the quote the couple sees so that a referral fee can be paid back to the planner; the couple pays a higher price, and a slice of it flows quietly to the planner. In the second, the planner negotiates a lower price and presents a higher one — the couple is shown a figure above the real cost, and the planner keeps the spread. Both produce the same result: money the couple pays that buys them nothing.
The reason this persists is that the structure is invisible by design. A couple sees one bundled number — "₹18 lakh for decor" — with no underlying invoice, so there is nothing to compare against. The vendor and planner both have an interest in keeping the breakdown closed. And because every planner in a market may operate this way, couples have no obvious benchmark for what "at cost" would even look like.
The deeper cost is not just financial. A planner earning a referral fee has a quiet incentive to recommend the vendor who pays the most, not the vendor who is genuinely best for the wedding. The couple's interest and the planner's interest stop being aligned — and the couple usually never knows. None of this is illegal, and many fine planners operate within it. But it is the opposite of transparent, and it is the convention Panigrahana deliberately stepped out of.
Panigrahana separates its own fee from vendor costs completely. There is no margin hidden inside anyone else's invoice.
One transparent planning and design fee. You pay Panigrahana directly and clearly for our work — strategy, design direction, vendor sourcing and negotiation, logistics, guest coordination, and on-ground production. That fee is stated up front and stands on its own. It is how we are paid, and it is the only way we are paid.
Every external vendor, passed through at cost. The caterer, the hotel, the lighting and sound supplier, transport, makeup, entertainment — each is paid at their actual invoiced price, and you see those invoices. We negotiate hard on your behalf, and the savings we win are yours, not ours.
No commissions. No kickbacks. We do not accept referral fees from any vendor we recommend. We earn exactly the same whichever caterer, hotel, or decorator you choose — so our recommendation is driven by what is right for your wedding, nothing else.
Our in-house work is quoted as ours — honestly. A large part of a Panigrahana wedding is built in-house: mandap, stage, floral, and lighting designed and produced by our own roughly 30-person team, founded and led by architect Chaithanya Iganesh. We use no outsourced catalogues. When we charge for design and production, it is plainly our own studio's work — never a third-party charge with our margin smuggled inside it.
This is the same studio behind 500+ weddings, including 300+ for NRI families across 12 countries, with a 4.8 rating across 241 reviews. Transparency is not a discount brand — it is how we believe a studio at this level earns the trust of families making one of the largest discretionary investments of their lives.
One note on scope: Panigrahana contracts in Indian rupees (INR). Any USD, GBP, or AED figures we share are approximate and move with the exchange rate — useful for planning, never the contracted amount.
Transparency only means something if it is verifiable. Here is exactly what is open to you on a Panigrahana wedding.
The figures below are an illustrative example only, shown to demonstrate how a transparent budget reads — not a quote, and not the cost of any real wedding. Your actual budget depends entirely on guest count, venue, season, and design. (For real, current ranges, see our Goa pricing guide and Bangalore pricing guide.)
Illustrative figures, rounded, for explanation only — GST (18%) and your specific scope are not modelled here. The point of the example is the last line: in a conventional arrangement, a slice of the catering, decor, and venue figures above might quietly fund a planner's commission. At Panigrahana that line is zero, every other line is the vendor's real invoice, and our fee sits on its own where you can see it.
In the wedding industry it is common — and largely standard practice — for planners to receive commissions or referral fees from the vendors they recommend, typically ranging from around 10% to 40% of the vendor's invoice depending on the category. This is rarely disclosed to the couple. The commission is built into the price the vendor quotes, so the couple pays more without ever seeing the breakdown. Panigrahana does not work this way: we charge a transparent planning fee, pass every vendor cost through at cost, and take no hidden commissions or kickbacks.
Vendor markup is the difference between what a vendor actually charges and what the couple is told the vendor charges. A planner may negotiate a decorator's price down to a certain figure, then present a higher figure to the couple and keep the difference; or the vendor inflates their quote to fund the planner's referral commission. Either way, the markup is money the couple pays that does not buy them anything — it is hidden margin sitting between them and the vendor. At Panigrahana there is no vendor markup: you see the vendor's actual invoice and pay it at cost.
Panigrahana separates its fee from vendor costs completely. You pay one clearly stated planning and design fee for our work — strategy, design, vendor sourcing, negotiation, logistics and on-ground production. Every external vendor (caterer, hotel, lighting, transport, and so on) is paid at their actual invoiced cost, and you see those invoices. Our own in-house design and production — mandap, stage, floral, lighting, built by our roughly 30-person team — is quoted directly as our work, not dressed up as a third-party charge. There is nothing hidden between you and any cost on the wedding.
Ask three direct questions: Do you take any commission or referral fee from vendors you recommend? Will I see the original vendor invoices, at the price the vendor charges you? Is your fee for planning stated separately from vendor costs? An honest, transparent planner answers yes, yes and yes without hesitation. If a planner cannot show you vendor invoices, or insists on quoting vendor work as a single bundled figure with no breakdown, that is usually where markup hides.
Because commissions quietly distort whose interest the planner is serving. A planner earning a referral fee is incentivised to recommend the vendor who pays the most, not the vendor who is best for the couple. By refusing commissions and charging a transparent fee instead, Panigrahana keeps that incentive clean: we recommend a vendor only because they are right for your wedding, and we are paid the same regardless of which vendor you choose. Transparency is also simply how we believe a 500-wedding studio earns trust with NRI and Indian families investing in once-in-a-lifetime events.
No commissions, no markup, no surprises — just a clear planning fee and every vendor at cost. Tell us about your wedding and we will show you exactly how it adds up.