WE might think our royal weddings are expensive – but they have got nothing on Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s £563million mega-nuptials.
The son of India’s richest man and the pharmaceutical heiress got hitched in Mumbai this weekend in front of 5,000 of the world’s wealthiest people.
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Guests included Kim and Khloe Kardashian, ex-Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Tony Blair, and actress Priyanka Chopra and her singer husband Nick Jonas.
In a country where millions live in poverty, the celebrations have drawn as much anger as curiosity.
The Ambanis reportedly booked 100 private jets to fly guests to India from around the world for the three-day wedding, taking place at the most expensive venue in the world.
Every five-star hotel in Mumbai has been booked up for their stay, being paid for by the family.
The multi-event celebrations for the 29-year-olds, which have cost 15 times that of Harry and Meghan’s £34million bash, kicked off with a pre-wedding party in March, at which Rihanna and Akon performed to 1,200 guests.
Rihanna is said to have got £5million for her 90-minute performance, with the whole event coming in at £126million.
Then came a £94.5million cruise around the Mediterranean for 800 guests, which saw performances from Katy Perry, Backstreet Boys and Pitbull across four days.
There was another, more traditional, pre-wedding party held last week, at which Justin Bieber performed for a reported £7million.
The final wedding event took place this weekend in Mumbai, with police warning there would be a constant traffic jam from July 12-15 around most of the city, as the thousands of suppliers, guests and security made their way to the venue.
The weekend’s festivities began on Friday at the Ambani family’s 27-storey compound, worth £780million and containing three helipads, a 160-car garage and a private cinema.
A lavish ceremony was then held on Saturday at Jio World Convention Centre, owned by Anant’s father Mukesh, 67.
Anant rode in on a white horse and danced with friends and family as confetti was thrown over him.
Meanwhile, bride Radhika made her entrance on a wooden boat that moved on an electric track.
Watched by guests, including the spiritual leader Jagadguru Rambhadracharya, they then exchanged vows under an imposing altar with a white dome, before Anant’s mother, Nita, 60, finished the ceremony with a poem about the value of daughters.
Radhika wore a stunning gold lehenga (a traditional ankle-length skirt) designed by Manish Malhotra, who served as the wedding’s creative director.
It was just one of many outfits she wore across the celebrations.
18-page dress code
Specialist weavers spent months making around 100 rare silk sarees using gold and silver thread and valued at more than £100,000 each.
The wedding guests’ wardrobes were also expensive, as each of them was given an 18-page dress code, requiring them to have five outfit changes.
Kim and Khloe had clearly splashed the cash on their stunning traditional outfits.
Kim was seen in a glamorous lehenga with intricate detailing — and a nose chain to match — while Khloe opted for a pink number in the day, swapping for a beautiful white and gold ensemble later.
Boris Johnson’s wife Carrie looked fabulous in a silver lehenga as she held hands with children Romy, two, and Wilf, four, who were both in traditional Indian dress, too.
Meanwhile, the former PM wore a simple suit with a green tie, carrying his youngest son Frank, one, on his shoulders.
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As soon as they entered the 18.5-acre venue, guests would have noticed 1,000 crystal chandeliers and 20million flowers lining the paths, which had been decorated by a team of 500 florists.
There was also a huge flower sculpture of a tiger.
Guests were then treated to glasses of some of the world’s finest vintage champagne.
Across all their wedding events, more than 30,000 bottles of bubbly will have been served.
When it came to the food, of course no expense was spared.
At the March celebrations, the couple offered their 1,000 guests 2,500 meal options.
Army of 500 chefs
This time, 37,500 options were cooked up by an army of 500 chefs.
During the March celebrations, guests received gift bags containing gold necklaces, high-end footwear, Louis Vuitton bags, specially designed duffle bags, luxurious nightwear and handcrafted scented candles.
During the March event, guests including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg got gift bags containing gold necklaces, high-end footwear, Louis Vuitton bags, specially designed duffle bags, luxurious nightwear and handcrafted scented candles.
Even the wedding invitations — which were contained in intricate golden chests filled with gifts — cost £6,770 to make.
And they are expected to have given out equally opulent wedding favours to take home from this weekend’s celebrations.
While they have spent millions on their big day, Anant and Radhika are expected to receive more than £100million worth of gifts back from their guests.
Anant’s father, who is worth £100billion and listed by Forbes as the world’s ninth richest man, has already bought a £62million villa in Dubai for the happy couple.
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Located in Palm Jumeirah, the 3,000 square foot pad has ten bedrooms and a private beach.
Anant and Radhika have also been given a £500,000 Bentley Continental GTC Speed, and the bride has received custom-made jewellery, including a £2million Cartier brooch.
Nita also gave her new daughter-in-law a pearl and diamond choker, worth an estimated £10million.
Experts at wedding planning app Bridebook estimate that the Ambani wedding will cost around £563million — 28,000 times the average UK wedding at around £20,000.
Hard pill to swallow
But in India, a country where the richest one per cent own more than 40 per cent of the country’s total wealth, Anant and Radhika’s wedding will have been a hard pill to swallow.
Writer and commentator Santosh Desai told the BBC: “It can easily be seen as a kind of a mockery, a sort of blindness to the reality of the country at one level.
At another level, however ridiculous this might be, it is still in keeping with the grossly distorted, almost grotesque bloating of Indian weddings in the last decade or so.
“It is part of a larger shift that is taking place.
“A generation or two ago, wealth was spoken of in whispers. Today, wealth must speak as loudly as possible.
“Even then, the scale of this wedding makes it an outlier.”
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On July 2, the family organised a mass wedding for more than 50 underprivileged couples from Maharashtra’s Palghar district, in line with the Marriages (Compulsory Registration and Prevention of Wasteful Expenditure) Bill, introduced in 2017.
The aim of the bill is to “prevent extravagant and wasteful expenditure” in weddings.
The bill states that if a family spends the equivalent of more than £4,713 on a wedding, it should contribute ten per cent of the amount to a welfare fund to facilitate marriages of girls from poor families.
This is not the first huge party dad Mukesh has thrown, either.
In 2018, his daughter, Isha, was given the most expensive wedding India had ever seen at the time, costing an estimated £80million.
Beyonce performed at her pre-wedding party, and guests, including former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, attended receptions at Italy’s Lake Como as well as Mumbai and Rajasthan.
Oh, how the other half — or one per cent — live.
FAMILY’S HUMBLE START
FATHER of the groom Mukesh is worth billions but his own dad, Dhirubhai, started as a yarn trader and petrol station attendant.
Dhirubhai, who moved the family to a two-bed flat in Mumbai, then started Reliance Industries in 1958.
Now owned by Mukesh, it is a massive conglomerate with interests in everything from oil to retail.
When Dhirubhai died in 2002, his four children were each bequeathed £33billion.
From there, Mukesh went on to lead the creation of the world’s largest grassroots petroleum refinery at Jamnagar in 2010 and open 700 grocery stores.
He also brought the largest 4G network to India.
Anant, along with his two older siblings, works on the board of his father’s conglomerate.
Meanwhile, Radhika is the daughter of pharmaceutical tycoon Viren Merchant and is the marketing director for his company, Encore Healthcare.
While her father is not doing badly with a net worth of almost £7billion, it is nothing compared to what her new family are worth.