After months of elaborate pre-wedding celebrations, India’s wealthiest family is reportedly spending over $100 million, possibly far more, on their son’s wedding, making it one of the most expensive weddings in modern history.
Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s four-day wedding is set to feature extravagant decorations, numerous celebrity performances, and guests from various fields including politics, business, sports, and the arts.
Ambani, the youngest child of Reliance Industries director Mukesh Ambani, one of the world’s richest men according to Forbes, is marrying Merchant, who comes from a notable family of multimillionaire pharmaceutical executives.
While the Ambanis have not publicly disclosed the total expenditure, estimates range from around $150 million to over half a billion dollars. These costs include hiring musicians, chartering private jets, and providing a feast for nearby underprivileged communities, as reported by the BBC and the India Times.
Given the number of international and Indian politicians attending – including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee – Mumbai police have classified the wedding as a public event, sealing roads near the venues to non-wedding guests as the groom led a convoy of luxury vehicles to kick off the festivities.
March saw the Ambani family hosting over a thousand people at their Jamnagar estate, including Mark Zuckerberg, Hillary Clinton, and Ivanka Trump. For the occasion, the Ambanis built a glass palace inspired by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Palm House and hired Rihanna for her first full-length concert in nearly a decade.
“I wanted to be fun, free, and young,” Merchant told Vogue about the all-night dancing that followed Rihanna’s performance. “An Indian wedding is incomplete without a lot of dancing.”
In late May, Ambani and Merchant held another pre-wedding celebration on the Mediterranean Sea, hosting 1,200 people for a four-day cruise starting in Palermo, Italy, and stopping in various locations. In Cannes, guests were surprised by a Katy Perry concert, and after reboarding the ship, Pitbull gave a second concert.
A stop in Portofino featured a performance by acclaimed opera singer Andrea Bocelli.
“It was just the most magical evening,” Merchant told Vogue of Bocelli’s performance. “I had goosebumps.”