Smaller celebrations, weaker demand
For Erel, founder of Bali-based BT Wedding, the post-pandemic recovery has given way to a downturn. His business grew between 2022 and 2024, but demand began weakening in 2025. He estimates that his 2026 bookings could fall 60-70 percent compared with previous years.
Speaking to Kompas on November 4, 2026, Erel described conditions as harder than during the 2020-2021 pandemic. He attributes the slowdown mainly to economic uncertainty. Overseas couples still interested in marrying in Bali are asking for smaller celebrations with fewer international guests. With demand constrained, he has reduced advertising spending because he sees little value in continuing it at previous levels.
Warsono, chairman of the Indonesian Decoration Services Entrepreneurs Association (Aspedi) for DKI Jakarta and owner of Garda Dekorasi, described a broader decline in July 2026. He estimated that demand across nearly all wedding-related businesses was down roughly 25-35 percent from a year earlier, stressing that this was not an exact count. The steepest fall, he said, affected middle- to upper-market receptions with 800-1,000 or more guests, while intimate weddings were growing.
Bali also faces competition for destination weddings. In August 2026, Bali Wedding Association (BWA) chairperson Veronika Ika Prawasti said Vietnam and Thailand were among its rivals. She put Bali's annual wedding volume at 2,500-3,000 and said BWA's 122 members each averaged 40-50 weddings a year. The average total wedding cost was Rp 200 million to Rp 300 million, she said, with full-property "buyout" venues taking costs into the billions of rupiah.
Price limits and service concerns
At Hageya Planner in Yogyakarta, project manager Brillian Horta has seen a substantial change in booking volumes and client priorities over the past two years. He describes a shift away from customers motivated by fear of missing out, or FOMO, who follow trends for prestige, toward those focused on spending as little as possible. In his account, couples increasingly accept lower expectations and service quality to secure the cheapest price.
Budget-conscious clients are not new, Brillian said, but they are more prevalent and less flexible than before. He estimates that the capacity to revise budgets, previously above 80 percent, has fallen to 40-50 percent. He associates the change with economic instability, more scams involving cheap packages, and guests' disappointment with organizers' work at relatives' weddings.
Brillian is especially concerned about newcomers charging Rp 1.5 million to Rp 3.5 million for organizing services. Some, he said, are former freelancers who launched businesses without sufficient preparation. He blames unsustainably low prices for poor planning, weak execution and confused coordination, particularly in major cities.
According to Brillian, underpaid teams may fall short of the agreed specifications and follow a schedule without understanding the work behind it. When problems arise, they struggle to respond. Families expecting comprehensive management, including the event layout and timing, can instead find that the organizer does little beyond working through the agenda.
Hageya Planner has maintained its service standards and a limit of two couples per day, Brillian said. Rather than compete on the cheapest package, it continues to sell professional planning services and draws additional revenue from work such as corporate events.
Uneven effects across the industry
The retreat from large receptions does not affect every supplier equally. A July 2026 CNBC Indonesia report described more Generation Z couples choosing ceremonies at the KUA, or religious affairs office, and smaller wedding celebrations. Adi Rahzalafna, owner of SatSet Wedding Organizer, said booking declines were concentrated in large events and services such as decoration, catering, emcees, wedding-day organizing crews and entertainment.
Demand for photographers, videographers and makeup artists remained steady, Adi said. Meanwhile, newer services, including bridal assistants and modern food stalls, were growing.
Hotels also face changing wedding preferences, alongside reduced demand for meetings and government events under budget-efficiency policies. Pressure extends to the broader events business: Lukman Sadaya, chairman of the East Java event management association Backstagers, said event numbers in the province fell 60 percent in the first quarter of 2026 from the same period in 2025, following government spending measures introduced in early 2025.
Lukman warned that layoffs could begin as early as the second quarter of 2026. He said the threat extended to about 12,000 freelancers who rely on the events industry.
Spending plans are not bookings
Bridestory's surveys offer a different measure: what engaged couples intend to spend, rather than what they ultimately pay or how many bookings organizers receive. The wedding e-commerce platform's CEO, Ayunda Wardhani, said the Rp 250 million to Rp 500 million range accounted for 39.9 percent of respondents in its 2025 Wedding Trend Survey Report, up from 37.8 percent in 2024.
The 2025 report included about 5,000 participants, of whom 58.70 percent were women and 41.30 percent were men. The second-largest budget group was Rp 500 million to Rp 1 billion, at 24.7 percent, followed by budgets below Rp 250 million, at 22.3 percent.
Ayunda said unreleased 2026 findings, scheduled for publication in January 2027, put the share planning to spend Rp 250 million to Rp 500 million at 40.9 percent. The share budgeting less than Rp 250 million also increased, reaching 25.5 percent. More than half of the survey respondents lived in Greater Jakarta, another limit on how broadly the findings describe the market.
Marriage decisions beyond the reception
The wedding industry's difficulties come against a longer decline in marriage numbers. A 2026 academic conference paper citing Indonesia's statistics agency, BPS, reported that marriages had fallen continuously since 2014. It put the total at more than 2 million in 2018 and about 1.4 million in 2024, and said the decline was expected to continue into 2025.
Andhika Baskoro, a researcher at the Population Research Center of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), sees a more pragmatic approach to marriage among some young people. He relates that outlook to the fear of marriage phenomenon he studies. Some postpone marriage or decide against it; others assess it as a transactional relationship and reject or delay it if they believe it would disadvantage them.
For Julius Tedja, a Generation Z worker in Jakarta, parental help made a celebration with more than 350 friends and relatives possible. He said friends paying for their own weddings from earnings and savings have to set tighter limits.
Without that family support, Julius said, young couples tend to prioritize the cost of living after marriage rather than use their savings for a celebration lasting only a day or a few hours.
