Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant married in one of India’s most high-profile weddings ever. Anant Ambani, a billionaire heir, is the younger son of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani and his wife, Nita Ambani.
On July 12, he married Radhika Merchant, the daughter of Encore Healthcare CEO Viren Merchant, in Mumbai.
Then, in February 2024, the pre-wedding festivities kicked off with a Lagan Lakhvanu ceremony. In early March of the same year, the Ambani family staged a three-day celebration at their enormous Jamnagar estate, which was attended by various national and international dignitaries. The guest list includes Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, as well as a slew of Bollywood stars, athletes, business leaders, and politicians. Rihanna and Diljit Dosanjh performed private concerts for guests during the Jamnagar festivities, which included three nights of spectacular parties.
The Ambani family then held a luxurious cruise for hundreds of people in late May. Many Bollywood celebs, including Shah Rukh Khan, Ranveer Singh, and Ananya Panday, took part in the trip, which made stops throughout the Mediterranean. Shakira, the Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, and David Guetta all performed exclusive concerts for the cruise’s guests.
The week leading up to the big day, July 12, was equally exciting. It included a sangeet (with a performance by Justin Bieber), a mameru ceremony, a garba night, a haldi ceremony, a mehendi ceremony, a mass wedding for the disadvantaged, a Shiv Shakti pooja, and a Graha Shanti pooja.
Here’s how foreign media reported the Ambani wedding:
The Sun
The Sun of the United Kingdom labeled it “the world’s most expensive wedding” in a statistically rich piece. According to a British tabloid, the Ambani family arranged for 100 private aircraft to fly overseas visitors to India, decked the location with 20 million flowers, offered over 37,500 food options prepared by 500 chefs, and paid between ₹6 and 7 lakh per invitation.
“But in India, a country where the richest one percent own more than 40 per cent of the country’s total wealth, Anant and Radhika’s wedding will have been a hard pill to swallow,” according to the newspaper.
The Washington Post
“Asia’s richest man is hosting a spectacular,’ ‘vulgar,’ star-studded wedding,” says a headline on the American daily’s website. The report observed that the enormous guest list received more interest than the couple themselves, “with pop stars, politicians, tech tycoons, and Bollywood stars setting social media abuzz with their attendance.”
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera emphasized the criticism that the extravagant events garnered. “Star-studded Ambani wedding highlights India’s rich vs poor divide,” runs a headline on the news portal.In another article, Al Jazeera discussed the widespread outrage about traffic restrictions imposed in Mumbai for the wedding.
The Guardian
The Guardian published a handful of articles about the Ambani wedding, one of which included the many visitors who descended on Mumbai for the festivities.In an opinion piece for the journal, Hannah Ellis-Petersen said that Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s wedding “surpassed even the wildest of imaginations in terms of opulence, ostentatious displays of wealth, and stamina.”
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