The wedding of the year (or maybe the century) has finally concluded. Including the pre-wedding festivities, the cruise parties, and the pujas, the wedding of billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s son Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant lasted over four months. As per estimates, the Ambani family spent Rs 5000 crore on the dozen odd lavish functions that saw thousands of guests. All this required meticulous planning, countless hours of brainstorming, and behind it all was one person, or rather the CEO of this planning.
The woman behind the planning of Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant wedding
Everything in the Ambani wedding, from the first pre-wedding celebrations at Vantara in Jamnagar and the lavish cruise celebration in south Europe to the week-long extravaganza in Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex, was planned and executed by a bunch of wedding planners. Sources tell us that as many as three separate companies were involved in the execution, one handling the stage, one the guests, and one the on-ground decor. However, there is no official confirmation on this. Bringing all this together was a core team set by the Ambani family themselves, including members of the family – Shloka Mehta and Isha Ambani – as well family’s in-house staff. At the head of it was the family matriarch, Mukesh Ambani’s wife Nita Ambani, heading all the planning and execution. In an interview to Vogue, the bride Radhika said, “My mother-in-law was the C.E.O. of the wedding, as I like to say. It was Nita’s commitment and vision that brought our entire celebration to life.”
The immense scale of the Ambani wedding
BBC has estimated that the ten-day wedding festivities in Mumbai – from July 5-15 – cost the Ambanis anywhere between Rs 1100 and Rs 1300 crore. Other estimates say that the entire four-month extravaganza cost somewhere around $600 million (Rs 5000 crore). This makes Anant and Radhika’s nuptials the most expensive in history. The wedding guests included several heads of state and governments, including Indian PM Narendra Modi and two former British Prime Ministers. The entirety of Indian cinema was present, as were Kim Kardashian and John Cena.
The performers included some of the biggest names in world music, including Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Shakira, Luis Fonzi, Diljit Dosanjh, Badshah, Rema, and others. Vogue reports that the Mangal Utsav – the couple’s reception party held on Sunday – was attended by 14000 guests. In her interview with Vogue, Radhika summed up on how to describe the lavish wedding. The atmosphere was filled with joy—and a bit of chaos,” she said.
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