Five other big fat Indian weddings, as Isha Ambani and Anand Piramal tie the knot in US$100 million celebration
- Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas, Elizabeth Hurley and Arun Nayar, the US$60 million nuptials of Vanisha Mittal, daughter of steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal
- Some are simply high-profile, others extremely high spending, but either way, there’s nothing quite like a lavish Indian wedding
Isha Ambani, the daughter of India’s richest man, is marrying Anand Piramal, son of another Indian billionaire, on Wednesday, a ceremony that will unite two of India’s most influential families.
Their wedding celebrations are the talk of India, not just because of their huge price tag (US$100 million according to Bloomberg) but because of the impressive guest list, which includes former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, media giant Arianna Huffington, former cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal. And let’s not forget a performance by singer Beyoncé at a pre-wedding celebration on Sunday night.
Lavish Indian weddings are nothing new among the country’s rich and famous. Here are five other crazy big ones that made headlines.
1. Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas
The Ambani-Piramal wedding comes hot on the heels of the star-studded union last week of Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra and US singer Nick Jonas, which cost more than US$800,000.
Their five-day wedding celebration at Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, Rajasthan – one of India’s most ostentatious royal palaces – was big in every sense, including the 75ft-long tulle veil on the bride’s Ralph Lauren dress. Videos of her sangeet, a celebratory wedding dance, went viral.
2. Vanisha Mittal and Amit Bhatia
The spending on this 2004 wedding was also off the scale. The six-day, US$60 million celebration was held at the historic 17th-century Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte near Paris, with the 1,000 guests flown in from all over the world by private jet (an engagement ceremony before the wedding was held at the Palace of Versailles).
Singer Kylie Minogue was paid US$330,000 to perform for just half an hour, and another highlight was a fireworks display that lit up the Eiffel Tower. Vanisha Mittal is the daughter of India’s second-richest man, the steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal. But money can’t buy eternal love – Vanisha’s marriage to her banker husband ended in 2013.
3. Arun Nayar and Elizabeth Hurley
Okay, so maybe not big when it comes to cash spent (just US$2.5 million) but this union of British model-actress Elizabeth Hurley and Indian businessman Arun Nayar had the celebrity and east-meets-west wow factor. The pair tied the knot in 2007 at ceremony at Britain’s Sudeley Castle.
The second ceremony was held at the Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, done in accordance to Nayar’s Hindu tradition. The couple flew in Elton John to perform. The couple split in 2010 after images circulated of Liz kissing Australian cricketer Shane Warne.
4. Brahmani and Rajeev Reddy
Another extravagant wedding that made headlines was that of Brahmani Reddy, the only daughter of Indian mining tycoon Gali Janardhana Reddy, in 2016. The five-day extravaganza cost an estimated US$74 million and was held in a royal palace attended by Brazilian dancers.
Guests received personalised wedding invitations via LCD screens and ate with utensils crafted of pure gold and silver. Many in India criticised the wedding, which came at a time when Indians were struggling to find money to buy food following the government’s decision to pull high-value notes out of circulation in an attempt to tackle tax evasion.
5. Sanjay Hinduja and Anu Mahtani
British-based millionaire Sanjay Hinduja married fashion designer Anu Mahtani in a flash-the-cash wedding in 2015 in Udaipur, Rajasthan, the same place Isha Ambani chose for her pre-wedding celebrations. The US$19 million nuptials included performances by Jennifer Lopez and Nicole Scherzinger from Pussycat Dolls.
The guests were chauffeured around exclusively in BMWs and showered in rose petals. It was estimated that 16,000 people attended one of the many events accompanying the main wedding celebrations.
