Karun, a 29 year old techie had his marriage fixed in his home town at Andhra Pradesh. He was working in Norway at his clients place for the past six years and most of his friends, including some of his colleagues were in Norway. Due to travelling constraints and work schedules they could not attend the ceremony in a quiet town in Southern India. Karun did not want his colleagues or friends to miss out on his wedding. This was when one of his friends suggested requesting a service provider to live stream his wedding. Karun, though was sceptical considering technical difficulties in live streaming his wedding. His worries disappeared after the company assured that it would be a success. His wedding was live streamed to his friends and colleagues in Norway, who witnessed an Indian wedding, live from their lap tops and smart phones for the first time in their lives. When Karun went back to Norway - he was greeted by his colleagues and amazed by their questions on the various rituals of an Indian marriage. He was spellbound by their curiosity and interest in Hindu weddings.

Such is the impact of technology on modern day lives, that in spite of being thousands of kilometres away, you can view the wedding live. Such transformation is not new, matrimonial sites have now revolutionised match making in India, now the traditional concept of searching for a bride or groom through word-of-mouth, marriage broker or through a common friend is reducing drastically. Matrimonial sites have revolutionized the search of brides and grooms. Rising competition among matrimonial sites have ensured their prices are low and come with different services. Such is the impact of matrimonial sites that, they even offer complementary services such as viewing horoscopes, chatting with a member and profile inputs from the relationship manager. They eliminate communicative barriers - even if - the prospective brides are from two different cities. Matrimonial sites offer e-mail, SMS and chatting options, through which, members can express interest etc.

Matrimonial service providers are on the rise mainly due to the changing attitudes of the people, globalisation, nuclear families which have ended the traditional system of selection of brides/grooms. These changes are a blessing in disguise to matrimonial companies which have Kannada matrimony, Tamil matrimony, Telugu matrimony and include different castes/sub-castes under each of these categories. The paid membership of matrimonial companies starts with Rs. 3,000/- and goes upto Rs.10,000/-. They provide different services such as offline services - through which they send hardcopies of matching profiles by post/courier to the members, online services - a familiar choice among members through which they can log-on to their id's and browse different profiles according to their language, caste and other partner preferences. Some of the matrimonial firms also provide discounts which can be availed by the members. Some matrimonial companies also provide live-streaming of the wedding, as part of their package. Mrs.Pushpa Murthy, a senior government official said €Opting for online matrimonial services saved lot of time since there most of the co-ordination was done by the company, there were also lot of choices for us to make a decision€ she said after her daughter's marriage got fixed through a leading Kannada matrimony site recently.
Technology has revolutionized match-making in recent days and with the IT boom, matrimonial firms are making the most of it as such a business requires very less capital investment and returns over a period of time is huge, the business is safer from economic downslides, requires less investment and allows market segmentation - a key strategy for increasing the volume and profitability of business - in a country like India.

Such is the success of matrimonial companies in India that, recently, a leading financial daily in India reported that one such matrimonial company is poised to go for an IPO (Initial Public Offering) to the tune of $ 100 million, the company will be going public by the end of 2014, said the daily. Speaking on Anonymity a senior source who confirmed the IPO said €We expect to get good response from the investors because of the defensive nature of the business. People will get married irrespective of the state of economy€.

Well, that sums it up!