There are weddings, and then there’s the Ambani wedding, the lavish series of events that has unspooled party by unbelievable pre-wedding party over the last several months and culminated this weekend with the union of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of super-billionaire Mukesh Ambani, and his new wife, pharmaceutical heir Radhika Merchant in Mumbai.
The celebrations from July 12 to 14 included a red carpet for attendees to walk, spotlighting the Hollywood, Bollywood, political, business, and tech luminaries invited to the wedding. Guests at the wedding, which cost a reported $600 million, included Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, John Cena, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Nick Jonas, Nicky Hilton Rothschild and James Rothschild, former U.K. prime ministers Boris Johnson and Tony Blair, stylist Law Roach, designer Prabal Gurung, Kim Kardashian and Khloé Kardashian, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and many more, with a reported crowd of some 2,000 guests. It was an A-list cast worthy of a Hollywood production, evidenced by the fact that the Kardashians brought their own camera crew to document their trip for their eponymous show, as Kim revealed in her Instagram Stories.
At pre-wedding events throughout 2024, stars such as Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Akon, Katy Perry, Pitbull, Andrea Bocelli, and the Backstreet Boys performed for guests. The weekend of the wedding itself, headliners such as Adele, Drake, and Lana Del Rey were rumored, but guests danced to a more internationally-focused lineup of entertainment: Luis Fonsi performed “Despacito,” K’Naan offered up his hit song “Waving Flag,” Afrobeats star Rema got the crowd going, and Bhangra musician Sukhbir also took the stage.
The details and grandeur of the wedding are expected to set trends for celebrations “for decades to come,” insiders told Vanity Fair. Bride Radhika told Vogue that her new mother-in-law, Nita Ambani, was “the CEO of the wedding, as I like to say. “It was Nita’s commitment and vision that brought our entire celebration to life.” Nita was assisted by daughter Isha Ambani and daughter-in-law Shloka Ambani.
Even the dates for the wedding were “strategically chosen,” according to Radhika, “upon the advice of our family pujari, who identified synchronic moments for our celebrations based on auspicious astrological alignments in both my charts as well as Anant’s. It was a meticulous process.”
Designer Gurung called the atmosphere “out of this world. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“The whole room was filled with flowers and Bollywood celebrities,” he continued. “There was all this dancing and singing.”
Event planner Preston Bailey was responsible for the florals, which included large sculptures of elephants, tigers, and monkeys, installations that were made up of about 100,000 flowers, by his estimation. Bailey told Vogue he had been in Mumbai for three weeks assembling the intricate floral art.
The bride wore a variety of high-fashion and archival pieces to wedding festivities, including pieces by Manish Malhotra, Dolce & Gabbana, Anamika Khanna, and others.
Her jewelry, however, was her “something old,” per wedding tradition.
“I wore the same necklace my sister and aunts wore at their weddings, and I truly believe it gave me a special strength and blessing as I walked down the aisle,” she said. “It was actually a piece that my dad had surprised my mom with on a holiday to celebrate their anniversary. I layered this with a new necklace we designed for this occasion.”
“There are looks—dresses and jewelry—which I have planned on with my mom and sister since I was a little girl,” Radhika said of her bridal style. “I haven’t paid much attention to trends.”
Now that the knot has been tied, Radhika said that she and new husband Anant are looking forward to the next phase of their partnership.
“We’ve been friends and confidants to one another for so long, and now we are finally embarking upon our official journey as a married couple,” she told Vogue. “I can’t wait to see what our shared life has in store.”
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