The wedding of the year (decade? Century?) is finally here: Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant are tying the knot. After months of pre-wedding festivities that put even the most opulent ceremonies to shame, the main event of the Ambani wedding, celebrating the union of the youngest son of one of the world’s wealthiest people with his longtime partner, finally began unfolding in earnest in Mumbai on Friday.
Which means, as you might guess, that Kim Kardashian and sister Khloe Kardashian are both present, complete with a full escort and live flute music to usher them to their hotel room. Khloe captured the welcoming procession on her Instagram Stories Friday. She mugged for the camera alongside Kim as they made their way down the hallway with the crowd, which also included aarti thali trays as a sign of respect.
Later, Khloe shared another video of Kim making many faces while the two traveled via rickshaw. Just typical wedding guest stuff, but in this case, everyone has a lot of zeroes in their bank accounts.
These two are among the celebrity guests expected to flood Mumbai for the wedding as it unfolds from Friday to Sunday. A grinning John Cena was on hand Friday, and Nick Jonas and wife Priyanka Chopra Jonas, whose 2018 nuptials Anant and Radhika attended together, arrived in Mumbai Thursday ahead of the festivities.
Anant is the son of Reliance Industries CEO Mukesh Ambani, who has an estimated net worth of approximately $123 billion—sitting at No. 11 on Forbes’ real-time billionaire tracker on his son’s wedding day. The Merchant family, too, are heavy-hitters in the business world, at the helm of the successful pharmaceutical company Encore Healthcare. Both the bride and the groom work at their respective family businesses.
Manish Malhotra is serving as the wedding’s creative director. He and Anant’s mother, Nita Ambani, were the architects of both a three-day pre-party in March (before which guests received a nine-page dress code document for the various festivities) and a cruise that floated some 1,200 guests through the Mediterranean for a long weekend from May into June. Expectations for the wedding itself are sky high, considering the pre-wedding celebrations have featured performances by Rihanna, Pitbull, Akon, Katy Perry, Andrea Bocelli, the Backstreet Boys, and more. Last week, Justin Bieber performed at another pre-wedding event for the couple, which he documented across 10 posts on his Instagram. Rumors point to Adele, Lana del Rey, and Drake as contenders for entertainment during the wedding weekend.
Malhotra previously discussed the long wedding planning process with Vanity Fair.
“[Planning the wedding] has taken over a year of dedicated meetings, countless brainstorming sessions, and endless attention to detail,” he said. “The wedding events are crafted to be immersive, bringing to life new stories and experiences while staying true to the core vision of celebrating Indian heritage and grandeur.”
Friday’s festivities will take place at the Jio World Centre, a massive cultural hub in Mumbai. Other weekend celebrations will be hosted at Antilia, the family’s 27-story home, which is reportedly the second-most expensive private home in the world—trailing only Buckingham Palace.
The massive guest list boasts Hollywood, Bollywood, political, and business luminaries, with at least two former U.K. prime ministers, Boris Johnson and Tony Blair, slated to be in attendance. Mike Tyson and David Beckham were reportedly invited, as was former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
As Malhotra teased ahead of the wedding, “Rest assured that the guest list will be as illustrious as it is exclusive, reflecting the stature and significance of this extraordinary celebration.”
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