After months of elaborate pre-wedding celebrations, India’s wealthiest family will reportedly spend north of $100 million, and possibly far more, on their son’s nuptials – making this one of the most expensive weddings in modern history.
Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s four-day wedding is expected to include eye-popping decorations, a slew of celebrity performances and guests from the worlds of politics, business, sports and the arts.
Ambani is the youngest child of Reliance Industries director Mukesh Ambani, the 11th richest man in the world, per Forbes. Bride-to-be Merchant is also from a prominent family – her parents are multimillionaire pharmaceutical executives.
The Ambanis have not publicly released the sum they spent on their wedding but estimates range from around $150 million to north of half a billion in expenses — including booking musicians, chartering private jets and throwing a feast for nearby underprivileged communities, according to reports from the BBC and the India Times.
Due to the sheer number of international and Indian politicians in attendance – including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee – Mumbai police have declared the wedding a public event, according to the BBC.
Roads were sealed to non-wedding guests near the event spaces while the groom led a convoy of luxe vehicles down the street to kick off the weekend’s festivities.
While this weekend marks the culmination of the couple’s celebrations, it is far from the first event in honor of Ambani and Merchant. In March, the Ambani family invited more than a thousand people to their estate in Jamnagar, India – including Mark Zuckerberg, Hillary Clinton and Ivanka Trump.
The Ambani family 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 partying that followed the Rihanna 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. The couple hosted 1,200 people for a four-day cruise beginning in Palermo, Italy and stopping throughout the region. When the cruise stopped in Cannes, guests were surprised by a Katy Perry concert. After reboarding the ship, there was a second concert – this time featuring Pitbull.
A stop in Portofino also featured a famous musician – acclaimed opera singer Andrea Bocelli.
“It was just the most magical evening,” Merchant told Vogue of Bocelli’s performance. “I had goosebumps.”