After months of elaborate pre-wedding celebrations, India’s wealthiest family will reportedly spend over $100 million on their son’s nuptials, making it one of the most expensive weddings in modern history.
Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s four-day wedding is expected to feature extravagant decorations, numerous celebrity performances, and guests from politics, business, sports, and the arts.
Anant Ambani is the youngest child of Reliance Industries director Mukesh Ambani, the 11th richest man globally, according to Forbes. Bride-to-be Radhika Merchant comes from a prominent family, with parents who are multimillionaire pharmaceutical executives.
The Ambanis have not publicly disclosed their wedding spending, but estimates range from around $150 million to over half a billion dollars. Expenses include booking musicians, chartering private jets, and hosting a feast for nearby underprivileged communities, as reported by the BBC and the India Times.
Given the numerous international and Indian politicians attending – including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee – Mumbai police have declared the wedding a public event. Roads near the event were sealed to non-wedding guests, while the groom led a convoy of luxury vehicles to kick off the festivities.
This weekend marks the culmination of the couple’s celebrations. In March, the Ambani family hosted over a thousand people at their Jamnagar estate, including Mark Zuckerberg, Hillary Clinton, and Ivanka Trump. They constructed a glass palace inspired by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Palm House for the occasion and hired Rihanna to perform her first full-length concert in nearly a decade.
“I wanted to be fun, free, and young,” Merchant told Vogue about the all-night party that followed Rihanna’s performance. “An Indian wedding is incomplete without a lot of dancing.”
In late May, Ambani and Merchant had another pre-wedding celebration on the Mediterranean Sea, hosting 1,200 people for a four-day cruise beginning in Palermo, Italy, and stopping at various locations. In Cannes, guests were treated to a Katy Perry concert, followed by another concert featuring Pitbull after reboarding the ship.
A stop in Portofino included a performance by acclaimed opera singer Andrea Bocelli.
“It was just the most magical evening,” Merchant told Vogue about Bocelli’s performance. “I had goosebumps.”