Diwali 2026 is on Sunday 8 November, with Dhanteras on Friday 6 November. The wedding season starts on 21 November and runs to the end of February, with a break from 13 December to 14 January when Drik Panchang lists no marriage dates. With 11 days left before Diwali, run short Click-to-WhatsApp campaigns with hard end dates and send one WhatsApp offer before Dhanteras. Then move your budget to the two wedding waves.
For the full year of dates, see the festival marketing calendar for India. For every step on the WhatsApp side, see our WhatsApp marketing guide for Indian businesses. This page puts both together for the four busiest months.
The dates, November 2026 to February 2027
Diwali dates are from Drik Panchang's 2026 puja calendar. Wedding dates are from its marriage muhurat lists for 2026 and 2027, calculated for New Delhi. Both were checked on 28 October 2026. Regional calendars differ, so check your city's panchang before you fix a date.
| Date | Occasion | Who it matters most for |
|---|---|---|
| Fri 6 Nov | Dhanteras | Jewellers, utensils, appliances, vehicles |
| Sun 8 Nov | Diwali (Lakshmi Puja) | Gifting, sweets, décor, electronics, home services |
| Tue 10 Nov | Govardhan Puja | Greetings |
| Wed 11 Nov | Bhai Dooj | Gifting |
| 21, 24, 25, 26 Nov | Wedding dates, wave 1 | Jewellers, venues, caterers, photographers, ethnic wear, salons |
| 2 to 6, 11, 12 Dec | Wedding dates, wave 1 | Same |
| 13 Dec to 14 Jan | No marriage dates listed | Year-end sales, Christmas, New Year |
| 25 Dec | Christmas | Bakeries, restaurants, gifting |
| 1 Jan | New Year | Fitness, clinics, coaching |
| 15, 18 to 20, 24, 26, 27, 30, 31 Jan | Wedding dates, wave 2 | Wedding businesses |
| 26 Jan | Republic Day | Sales, respectful greetings |
| 2, 3, 9 to 11, 14, 15, 21, 22, 25 to 28 Feb | Wedding dates, wave 2 | Wedding businesses |
| 14 Feb | Valentine's Day | Gifting, restaurants, jewellers |
Drik Panchang marks 1 to 20 November 2026 as unsuitable for weddings because of Chaturmas, which is why the season opens on the 21st.
Phase 1: the 10 days before Diwali (now to 8 November)
You have little time, and Meta's systems need some of it.
What's realistic this late
- Ad review: Meta says ad review "is typically completed within 24 hours", though some ads take longer (Meta Transparency Center, checked 28 Oct 2026). Launch by 31 October to get a full week before Dhanteras.
- Learning phase: an ad set needs about 50 optimisation events within 7 days of its last significant edit to leave learning, according to PPC Land (PPC Land, checked 28 Oct 2026). A ten-day Diwali campaign may never leave learning, which is acceptable for a short push. Avoid editing targeting or the optimisation goal once it's live, because big edits restart learning.
- WhatsApp templates: review can take up to 24 hours (Meta, templates overview, checked 28 Oct 2026). Submit today if you haven't.
Ads: one simple Click-to-WhatsApp campaign
- Objective: Engagement or Leads, with WhatsApp as the destination. Meta's Marketing API supports Engagement, Leads, Sales and Traffic for Click-to-WhatsApp (Meta, Click-to-WhatsApp ads, checked 28 Oct 2026).
- Budget: a lifetime budget with an end date of 8 November (or 6 November for Dhanteras offers). Meta can spend up to 75% over a daily budget on some days, with a weekly cap of seven times the daily amount (Jon Loomer, checked 28 Oct 2026). A lifetime budget is easier to control.
- Targeting: a radius around your shop or the cities you deliver to.
- Creative: one offer, one deadline, your shop name. Use real product photos.
- Welcome message: ice-breaker questions that sort buyers, such as "Gift hampers under ₹1,500?", "Corporate order (20+ boxes)?" or "Delivery today?"
Reply in time and a free entry point window opens. Meta doesn't charge for your marketing, utility, authentication or service messages in it for up to 7 days (Meta pricing, checked 28 Oct 2026). So a lead who messages from your ad on 2 November can get your follow-ups free for up to a week. Full setup is in Click-to-WhatsApp ads: a step-by-step guide.
WhatsApp: one offer, one reminder
- Send the offer between 1 and 5 November, before Dhanteras, to opted-in customers only.
- Send one reminder two or three days later to people who didn't reply.
- Each delivered marketing message to an Indian number costs ₹0.8631 before GST on Meta's rate card effective 1 October 2026.
The full pre-send list (opt-ins, limits, error 131049) is in the festival WhatsApp campaign checklist, and copy you can adapt is in our WhatsApp template examples.
Creative
If you don't have festival creative yet, a Diwali greeting with your logo, number and offer is the minimum. Creative Bee makes festival packs in English, Hindi or Gujarati with your own details, delivered on WhatsApp for you to post to your Status. See Diwali posts for business.
Phase 2: Diwali week (6 to 11 November)
Most of the work this week happens in the inbox.
- Staff the evenings. Festival buyers message late. Reply within minutes, with a person or software that answers from your price list.
- Switch to utility templates for order confirmations, pickup times and delivery slots. They cost ₹0.115 each and must contain no offer.
- Watch spend daily. Pause ads for products that have sold out. If you close or can't answer chats on Diwali day, end ads the evening before.
- Don't send extra marketing messages. Every brand is messaging the same customers this week, and WhatsApp may cap how many marketing messages each person receives (Meta, per-user limits, checked 28 Oct 2026).
Phase 3: after Diwali (12 to 20 November)
This is a quiet week for ads and a good one for setting up the wedding season.
- Thank customers and ask for reviews. A short thank-you with a review link to every customer, not just the happy ones. See how to get more Google reviews.
- Tag every Diwali chat. Mark who bought, who asked about weddings and who went quiet. Those tags become your wedding-season segments.
- Work out your numbers. Ad spend, Meta message fees and GST, divided by orders. Note which offer and creative did best.
- Build wedding-season ads now, while ad costs settle and before 21 November. Submit wedding templates now too.
Phase 4: wedding wave 1 (21 November to 12 December)
Eleven marriage dates in three weeks (New Delhi list). Whatever families still need to buy or book for those dates has to happen in the next few weeks.
Who should spend in wave 1
- Jewellers and bridal wear: last-minute buyers and family members' outfits.
- Salons and makeup artists: bridal and party bookings for the exact dates.
- Caterers, decorators, photographers, venues: fill any wave 1 gaps, and if those dates are already full, sell wave 2 instead (see Phase 5).
- Gifting, sweet shops, return-gift sellers: bulk orders for each date.
Ads
- Click-to-WhatsApp with ice-breakers that ask for the wedding date and budget band. A lead with a date two weeks away is worth more than one "just browsing".
- WhatsApp Status ads suit boutiques and jewellers with good vertical video. They run only alongside Instagram Stories, use 9:16 creative, and Meta excludes healthcare and pharma from delivery (Meta, ads in WhatsApp Status, checked 28 Oct 2026). Details in WhatsApp Status ads.
- Retarget people who chatted at Diwali but didn't buy, if you have built a custom audience of them.
- Lookbooks and price bands on request, inside the open chat. Replies to a customer who messaged you cost nothing up to 1,000 a month per number.
- Booking confirmations and reminders as utility templates.
Phase 5: the gap (13 December to 14 January)
No marriage dates are listed, but the planning goes on. Families book for January and February weddings in this period.
- Wedding businesses: keep a smaller Click-to-WhatsApp campaign running for wave 2 enquiries. Push early booking for the January and February dates.
- Everyone else: Christmas and New Year offers. Clinics, gyms and coaching institutes can use New Year resolutions as the angle around 1 January.
- Housekeeping before 31 December: if your WhatsApp account bills in USD, move to INR. Meta says eligible Indian businesses must migrate all accounts by 31 December 2026, or messages stop being delivered from 1 January 2027 (Meta pricing, checked 28 Oct 2026). Details in WhatsApp Business API pricing in India.
Phase 6: wedding wave 2 (15 January to 28 February 2027)
Twenty-two marriage dates in six weeks on the New Delhi list. That makes it the larger wave.
- Relaunch wave 1 campaigns with fresh creative. People who saw your November ads several times have stopped noticing them.
- Message your wave 1 enquiries who booked for later dates with a utility reminder about their booking, and anyone who asked about wave 2 with one marketing follow-up.
- Mind the overlaps: Makar Sankranti and Uttarayan in mid-January, Republic Day sales on 26 January and Valentine's Day on 14 February. Jewellers and gifting businesses can run a Valentine's offer alongside wedding ads. Keep them as separate campaigns so you can see which works.
Budget guardrails for the season
Illustrative example: a jeweller in Surat.
| Period | Share of the season's ad budget | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 28 Oct to 8 Nov | 25% | Dhanteras and Diwali buying |
| 9 to 20 Nov | 5% | Quiet; retarget and prepare |
| 21 Nov to 12 Dec | 25% | Wedding wave 1 |
| 13 Dec to 14 Jan | 10% | Wave 2 bookings, year-end |
| 15 Jan to 28 Feb | 35% | Wedding wave 2, Valentine's |
Your split will differ. The rules shouldn't:
- Set an account spending limit and a lifetime budget or end date on every campaign.
- Judge campaigns on cost per qualified lead and cost per order, not cost per chat.
- Make changes in one go, not daily, to avoid restarting learning. See Meta ads budget guardrails.
How BeeCMO helps
Forager Bee plans Click-to-WhatsApp and WhatsApp Status campaigns, builds them paused in your ad account and asks for your approval on WhatsApp before anything spends. A server-side check pauses live campaigns if spend passes your caps. With Messenger Bee, the chats land in one inbox and go to the pipeline. See Forager Bee.
Frequently asked questions
When is Diwali 2026?
Lakshmi Puja is on Sunday 8 November 2026, with Dhanteras on Friday 6 November and Bhai Dooj on Wednesday 11 November, per Drik Panchang for New Delhi.
When does the wedding season start in 2026?
Drik Panchang lists the first marriage date as 21 November 2026, after Chaturmas ends. Its New Delhi list has 4 dates in November, 7 in December up to 12 December, none from 13 December to 14 January, then 9 in January and 13 in February 2027.
Is it too late to run Diwali ads?
Not if you launch by about 31 October. Meta says ad review is typically completed within 24 hours. Keep it simple: one Click-to-WhatsApp campaign with a lifetime budget ending on Diwali, and no big edits once it's running.
Should I send WhatsApp offers on Diwali day?
Send the offer between 1 and 5 November, before Dhanteras, and one reminder after that. On Diwali day itself, customers get messages from many businesses, and WhatsApp may cap how many marketing messages each person receives.
Which businesses should advertise in the gap between wedding waves?
Caterers, venues, decorators and photographers, because families book for January and February weddings during that time. Other businesses can switch to Christmas and New Year offers.
Sources
All checked 28 October 2026.
- Drik Panchang, Diwali 2026 puja calendar (New Delhi): https://www.drikpanchang.com/diwali/diwali-puja-calendar.html?year=2026
- Drik Panchang, shubh marriage dates 2026 (November and December, Chaturmas note): https://www.drikpanchang.com/shubh-dates/shubh-marriage-dates-with-muhurat.html?year=2026
- Drik Panchang, shubh marriage dates 2027 (January and February): https://www.drikpanchang.com/shubh-dates/shubh-marriage-dates-with-muhurat.html?year=2027
- Meta Transparency Center, advertising standards (ad review typically within 24 hours): https://transparency.meta.com/policies/ad-standards/
- PPC Land, Meta learning phase (about 50 events in 7 days; significant edits): https://ppc.land/learning-phase/
- Jon Loomer, updates to Meta ads budgeting (75% daily overspend, 7x weekly cap): https://www.jonloomer.com/updates-to-meta-ads-budgeting/
- Meta, Click-to-WhatsApp ads (objectives, welcome message): https://developers.facebook.com/documentation/ads-commerce/marketing-api/ad-creative/messaging-ads/click-to-whatsapp
- Meta, ads in WhatsApp Status (Instagram Stories pairing, 9:16, excluded verticals): https://developers.facebook.com/documentation/ads-commerce/marketing-api/ads-in-whatsapp-status
- Meta, WhatsApp templates overview (review time): https://developers.facebook.com/documentation/business-messaging/whatsapp/templates/overview
- Meta, WhatsApp Business Platform pricing (rates, free entry point window, INR deadline): https://developers.facebook.com/documentation/business-messaging/whatsapp/pricing
- Meta, per-user marketing template limits: https://developers.facebook.com/documentation/business-messaging/whatsapp/templates/marketing-templates/per-user-limits