
The youngest son of Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, married his longtime girlfriend early on Saturday in what many called the wedding of the year. Attendees included politicians, business moguls, and celebrities from all over the world, underscoring the billionaire’s extraordinary wealth and growing influence.
The pair exchanged garlands and walked around the sacred fire as part of the wedding rites, which started on Friday and ended after midnight.
The Ambani family’s Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai and the Ambani residence hosted the festivities for Anant Ambani’s marriage to Radhika Merchant. Months of planning preceded the marriage, which included performances by pop icons like Justin Bieber and Rihanna.
The traditional Hindu wedding ceremony kicked off the four-day celebrations on Friday, and they will continue into the weekend with a lavish banquet. Local media reports that Adele, Lana Del Rey, Drake, David Beckham, and former British prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson are among the guests, along with Saudi Aramco CEO Amin H. Nasser. The guest list was not verified by the Ambani family.
Celebrities such as Hollywood actor and professional wrestler John Cena and Kim Kardashian were shown on television news stations. Kardashian was dressed in crimson.
Major Indian fashion designers also created traditional clothes for foreign guests. They are dressed in embroidered sherwanis, which are long-sleeved outer jackets traditionally worn by males in South Asia. Cena arrived wearing white slacks and a sky-blue sherwani. Nick Jonas wore white slacks and a pink sherwani.
In order to manage the inflow of guests who traveled by plane to Mumbai, where heavy monsoon rains had resulted in floods and flight difficulties for the previous week, police implemented traffic diversions around the wedding location from Friday to Monday.
In India, where the wealth gap between the rich and the poor is widening, many have expressed concerns about growing inequality as a result of the wedding’s spectacular and opulent show. Some Mumbai residents, who claim they are having trouble with congested traffic, have expressed their disgust over the incident as well.
It has an impact on our income. “I don’t really care about the wedding,” declared Vikram, a single-name taxi driver.
According to Forbes, the groom’s father, Mukesh Ambani, has a net worth of $116 billion, making him the ninth richest man in the world. He is Asia’s wealthiest individual. His Reliance Industries is a conglomerate having holdings in retail, communications, petrochemicals, oil and gas, and over $100 billion in revenue annually.
Among their many possessions is a $1 billion 27-story family complex in Mumbai owned by the Ambani family. The structure has a 160-car garage, three helipads, and a private cinema.
Anant, the 29-year-old groom, is in charge of the company’s expansion into renewable and green energy. Along with this, he oversees a 3,000-acre (1,200-hectare) animal rescue center in Jamnagar, Gujarat state, where the family is originally from.
According to Vogue, the bride, 29-year-old Radhika Merchant, is the marketing director for her father’s business, Encore Healthcare, and the daughter of pharmaceutical mogul Viren Merchant.
Opponents of Ambani claim that his business has depended on political ties both under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership following 2014 and during Congress Party-led administrations in the 1970s and 1980s.
Pre-wedding festivities hosted by the Ambani family have always been opulent and attended by celebrities.
They hosted a three-day prenuptial celebration for Anant in March, which drew 1,200 guests and featured performances by Rihanna, Akon, and Diljit Dosanjh, a Punjabi musician who gained international recognition after playing Coachella. Other attendees included former world leaders, tech billionaires, and Bollywood superstars. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, two tech billionaires, were also present.
It marked the beginning of extravagant pre-wedding festivities that drew media attention and sparked a social media craze for several months.
According to media sources, the family hosted a three-day trip from Italy to France in May, during which Pitbull performed and Katy Perry sang her popular song “Firework.”
As part of the festivities, the family also planned a mass wedding for over fifty impoverished couples on July 2.
Bollywood actors Salman Khan, Ranveer Singh, and Alia Bhatt all performed at a pre-wedding concert last week, which also featured Justin Bieber in front of hundreds of attendees.
In 2018, BeyoncĂ©’s performance at his daughter’s pre-wedding festivities garnered attention for Ambani as well. In the western Indian city of Udaipur, former US Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry were among the celebs and Bollywood stars that passed by.