Not every occasion warrants a wedding-scale team. Most warrant more than a cousin with a phone.
What these events have in common
A short, intense ritual surrounded by a long, busy gathering. The ritual itself often lasts under ten minutes — the naming, the first placement in the cradle, the piercing — and it cannot be repeated. Everything else is the family, the food and the conversation.
So the coverage splits: documentary work through the ritual without interrupting it, and portraits arranged in the gaps around it.
The three things worth telling a photographer in advance
The ritual order. Practice varies between communities and even between families. Knowing what comes next is most of the job.
Who is holding the baby. This decides which side of the room the photographer needs to be on for the one frame that cannot be retaken.
Where the elders will be. The reactions are often the best images of the day, and they only exist if someone is already looking in that direction.
If it is at home
Send a photograph of the room when you enquire. Chennai apartments vary enormously in natural light, and a room lit by a single ceiling tube is a very different problem from one with a west-facing window. Knowing beforehand means bringing the right lighting rather than improvising.
Combining with a studio session
Worth considering. Ceremony days are busy, the baby is passed between a great many people, and the portrait everyone actually wants for the wall is hard to get in that environment. A calm studio session on a different day is a different photograph entirely.