An auspicious alignment of celestial bodies has made December the busiest month of the wedding calendar with around 15,000 couples estimated to tie the knot in the Capital on Sunday.

Jupiter, the planet which decides how happy a woman would be with her spouse, has become stronger and is positioned in Scorpio along with Sun, Mars andMercury with Venus sitting in Sagittarius — a configuration considered very auspicious by astrologers. Along with this, the calculations of Tithi, Vaar, Yog, Nakshatra and Karan, which are used to predict auspicious dates and shubh mahurat, have suggested December 12, 13, 14 and 15 as the best dates for getting married. According to astrologers, December and January have some very auspicious dates and there is going to be a huge wedding rush during this peiod.

As always, wedding arrangements have come with their usual baggage of hunting for wedding venues and negotiating with caterers, florists and tent-owners. In a venue starved-city, most farmhouses and banquet halls having already been sealed by the authorities, anxious parents had booked venues several months in advance and hotels were completely sold out for Sunday. While all four wedding venues at Hotel Ashoka were sold out till December 14, Crown Plaza Hotel, which would be hosting four wedding functions on Sunday, had its hall Elysee booked for this day in as early as March this year.

With most of the legal benues in the city having already been booked, several people have opted for other venues in NCR cities of Gurgaon and Noida. According to the owner of a catering service, they were handling four wedding functions on Sunday of which three were being held in Gurgaon for Delhi-based families who could not find a venue in the city.

The sudden wedding rush has also meant boom time for suppliers of items like tents, generators and bands with one tent-house owner claiming to have almost doubled his rates. The laborers too, who normally charge Rs 250 for a day were now charging Rs 600 for a day while generators were being rented out for as much as Rs 10,000 compared to Rs 4,000 on normal days. The florists have not missed out on the fervor either with flowers, which were otherwise easily available, being auctioned during this period with rates being as high as 200% of the normal price.

Anticipating a huge rush of vehicles on the road, the Delhi Traffic Police has also sprung into action and has already issued guidelines for the guests to leave well in time for the respective venues. It has also requested people not to take out long wedding processions on the roads and has banned the parking of vehicles on roads outside the wedding venues.