For one of India’s richest families, a wedding is more than just a wedding: it’s a spectacle meant to surprise even the richest and most powerful people in the world.
In 2018, wealthy Indian Mukesh Ambani invited his daughter Isha to the most expensive wedding the country has ever seen, with Beyoncé and guests at the reception on Lake Como in Italy, as well as in Mumbai and Rajasthan… around $100m (£80m).
Ambani, who has never been defeated even by her own husband, plans to stage an even more extreme affair early next month, this time for the wedding of her youngest son, Anant Ambani who is 28 years old.
Newspapers across India were stunned by the details of the wedding ceremony in which Anant Ambani was to marry 29-year-old Radhika Merchant, the daughter of a prominent business family that runs India’s major pharmaceutical company Encore Healthcare. Merchant, a trained Indian classical dancer, now serves on Encore’s board of directors.
While exact details of July’s nuptials have yet to be announced, the three-day wedding celebrations in March are expected to be a glitzy, star-studded affair.
The wedding festivities will kick off on March 1 with a three-day bash at the 3,000-hectare garden in the oil refinery district of Jamnagar, Ambani’s home state of Gujarat.
The garden is said to have trees over 10 meters tall and Asia’s largest mango forest. The garden is also home to the Ambani Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, which is home to 2,000 animals rescued from India and the world, including leopards, tigers, lions, jaguars, and elephants.
International Guest’s
Rihanna ( a famous Barbadian singer, businesswoman, and actress) has reportedly signed on to star alongside illusionist David Blaine ( an American illusionist, endurance artist, and extreme performer), while the guest list includes billionaires stars like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Ivanka Trump.
Other players arriving on Friday included cricketers Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Dwayne Bravo and BP chief Murray Auchincloss.
Different visitors expected at Ambani’s occasion incorporate BlackRock co-founder Larry Fink, Alphabet President Sundar Pichai, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, former Australian Top state leader Kevin Rudd and Ivanka Trump.
Guest are also expected to visit Jamnagar Rescue Centre, home to over 2,000 animals. The dress code for the trip is “jungle fever,” according to a planning document seen by Reuters.
Approximately 2,500 dishes are expected to be served to guests over the three days, so guests will not eat the same meal twice.
Although few people in India can afford lavish weddings like the Ambanis, figures show that weddings in India are getting bigger and more extravagant. India currently spends more than $75 billion on weddings consistently, making it the country’s fourth biggest industry.
Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, which deals in everything from energy to textiles to telecommunications, is Asia’s richest man with a fortune of $112 billion, according to the Forbes Rich List. Ambani’s 27-story mansion in Mumbai, Antilla, attracted world attention when it was built at a cost of more than $1 billion. Forbes listed it as the most valuable property in the world.
Although full details of the wedding are not yet to be announced, the three-day wedding in March looks set to be a fun and star-studded affair.
