Vivah muhurat 2027: how auspicious wedding dates are chosen

Hindu wedding dates for 2027 are chosen by filtering every day of the year through a set of panchang rules: the Moon must be in a favourable nakshatra, the tithi must not be a Rikta tithi or Amavasya, the weekday and half-tithi (karana) must be acceptable, and the day must fall outside the periods when weddings are traditionally suspended — Kharmas, Chaturmas, and the combustion of Venus or Jupiter. What survives is a short list of dates, which is then narrowed to an hour for the specific city.

The computed list is at Vivah muhurat 2027: choose your city and it shows each qualifying date with the reasons it passed. This page explains the rules behind it.

The day-level rules

Nakshatra

The Moon's nakshatra carries the most weight. The classical texts favour Rohini, Mrigashira, Magha, Uttara Phalguni, Hasta, Swati, Anuradha, Mula, Uttara Ashadha, Uttara Bhadrapada and Revati for marriage. Regional lists differ by one or two names, but the core is consistent.

The Moon changes nakshatra roughly once a day, and the change can happen at any hour. A date can therefore qualify only for part of the day, which is one reason a wedding muhurta is ultimately an hour, not a date.

Tithi

The tithi is the lunar day, each 12° of separation between the Moon and the Sun. Weddings avoid the Rikta ("empty") tithis, the 4th, 9th and 14th of each fortnight, and Amavasya, the new Moon. Many families additionally prefer the waxing fortnight (Shukla paksha).

Weekday

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are the traditionally favoured weekdays. Tuesday is widely avoided. Practice on Saturday and Sunday varies by region.

Karana

A karana is half a tithi. One of the eleven karanas, Vishti (also called Bhadra), is held to be unsuitable for auspicious beginnings, and a wedding is not set in it.

Why whole months close

The rules above remove individual days. The following remove whole stretches of the calendar, and they are the reason wedding seasons cluster the way they do.

Kharmas (Malmas)

When the Sun is in sidereal Sagittarius (Dhanu) or Pisces (Meena), weddings are traditionally not performed. The Sun spends about a month in each sign, so this closes roughly mid-December to mid-January and roughly mid-March to mid-April. The exact boundaries are the Sun's ingress into and out of those signs, which the site computes for each year.

Chaturmas

Chaturmas runs from Devshayani Ekadashi, the 11th tithi of the bright fortnight of Ashadha, to Prabodhini (Dev Uthani) Ekadashi, the 11th of the bright fortnight of Kartika. That is four lunar months. With a synodic month of about 29.53 days, four months come to 4 × 29.53 ≈ 118 days. In a year with an extra lunar month (adhika masa) inside that span, it becomes five months, about 148 days. Because it follows the lunar calendar, Chaturmas falls on different Gregorian dates every year, but it usually covers most of July to early November.

Combustion of Venus or Jupiter (Shukra or Guru asta)

A planet is "combust" when it is too close to the Sun to be seen. Venus governs marriage and Jupiter governs blessing and dharma in this tradition, and weddings are not held while either is combust. Jupiter is combust for about a month once a year or so. Venus has longer combust periods, and its timing shifts from year to year. When a combustion falls in what would otherwise be wedding season, it can remove weeks of dates that people expect to be available.

A rough tally

Add the closures up before any day-level rule is applied. Two months of Kharmas, about four months of Chaturmas, plus whatever combustion falls outside those, leaves something like half the year open. The nakshatra, tithi, weekday and karana filters then cut that open half down to a modest list. This is why popular dates are booked so far ahead, and why a list of wedding dates for any year is short.

A worked check of one day

Take a hypothetical day and test it the way the calculator does.

• The Sun is at 195° of sidereal longitude, in Libra: not Sagittarius or Pisces, so not Kharmas.
• The day is after Prabodhini Ekadashi: outside Chaturmas.
• Neither Venus nor Jupiter is combust.
• The Moon is at 221°, so it is 221 − 195 = 26° ahead of the Sun. 26 ÷ 12 = 2.17: two whole tithis have passed, so this is the 3rd tithi, Shukla Tritiya. Not Rikta, not Amavasya.
• The karana: 26 ÷ 6 = 4.33, so four whole karanas have passed and this is the 5th. The 1st karana of the lunar month is Kimstughna, and from the 2nd the seven movable karanas run Bava, Balava, Kaulava, Taitila, Garaja, Vanija, Vishti. The 5th is Taitila, not Vishti.
• Nakshatra: each spans 13°20′, and 221° falls in the 17th, Anuradha (213°20′ to 226°40′), a marriage nakshatra.
• The day is a Friday.

Every rule passes, and the day would qualify. Change one input, say the Moon 100° ahead of the Sun, and 100 ÷ 12 = 8.33 puts the day in the 9th tithi, Navami, a Rikta tithi, and it drops out regardless of everything else.

Why lists differ between publishers

If you compare the site's list with a printed almanac or another website, you will usually find most dates agree and a few do not. That is expected, and it does not mean either source is careless.

• Regional rules. Many almanacs add conditions of their own: avoiding adhika masa, avoiding particular months such as Ashadha or Paush in some regions, avoiding certain yogas, or treating Saturday and Sunday differently.
• Calendar conventions. North Indian (purnimanta) and South and West Indian (amanta) calendars name months differently, which affects month-based rules.
• Place. Sunrise decides the tithi and nakshatra in force for a day. A date that qualifies in Delhi can fail in Toronto or Melbourne, because the transition times fall differently against local sunrise.

The site states its rules plainly so you can see why a date is in or out. If your family follows a specific almanac, treat the computed list as a starting point and confirm with your priest.

After the date: the hour and the couple

A qualifying date is not yet a muhurta. The ceremony itself is set to a lagna, the rising sign, and the right hour depends on the city. Many families also check choghadiya or Rahu Kaal for the main rites.

The tradition also looks at the couple, not just the calendar. Horoscope matching is done separately; the kundli matching calculator computes the 36-point Ashtakoota score with its breakdown. For a broader view of what timing can and cannot do, see what muhurta can and cannot tell you.

Frequently asked questions

Which months of 2027 have no wedding muhurat?

The closed periods are set by mechanism, not by a fixed calendar: the Sun in Sagittarius and Pisces (roughly mid-December to mid-January and mid-March to mid-April), Chaturmas (usually most of July to early November), and any combustion of Venus or Jupiter. The 2027 vivah list shows exactly which dates survive for your city.

Why are there so few wedding dates in some years?

Usually because a combustion of Venus or Jupiter falls in the cooler months that would otherwise be the main season, or because an adhika masa lengthens Chaturmas.

Do I need a different list if the wedding is abroad?

Yes. The day's tithi and nakshatra are judged at local sunrise, so the list for London or New York can differ from the list for Delhi. Select the city where the wedding will take place.

Is a date with a good nakshatra enough?

No. The nakshatra is one rule among several, and a date also needs an acceptable tithi, weekday and karana, outside the closed periods.