It’s not every day that you pay millions of dollars for A-list celebrities, billionaires, and some of the most influential “royals” to make an appearance at your son’s pre-wedding Mukesh Ambani, it is nothing out of the ordinary.
Mukesh Ambani is the world’s wealthiest Asian and runs one of the world’s largest companies, having a net worth of about 117.3 billion USD, yet his attention never diverts from his children. Ambani unapologetically spent 152 million dollars on the three-day prenuptial festivities for his son and his wife, Anant Ambani, and Radhika Merchant, inviting a significantly long list of 1,200 VIP guests, among those being Rihanna, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, the three Khans, and several Bollywood heart-throbs.
Rihanna earned 6.3 million dollars for her private concert at their wedding, her first actual performance after years of retirement, performing a whopping 19-song production in honor of Anant’s and Radhika’s union. Some ridiculed her for her “lackluster” performance and mispronunciation of Radhika’s name, especially after being offered millions of dollars. However, they aren’t complaining; the pre-wedding celebration is more than anyone could have requested.
Rihanna at the Ambani Pre-wedding
Details of the Pre-Wedding
Their weekend celebration spanned from March 1st to March 3rd and consisted of several other star-studded performances. The wedding was held in Jamnagar, a city in Gujarat, India, as this venue was Anant’s grandmother’s birthplace and where his family’s business took root and grew into a success that inevitably provided them the affluence to even host a celebration as lavish as this one.
Before the grand 3-day prenuptial festivities began, the Ambani family generously organized a community food service for over 50,000 people in the Jamnagar village, also termed an “anna seva,” to seek blessings from their community.
Segue into the celebration’s details, specific themes and “dress codes” are created for the guests to follow. The dress code was nine pages long, but for a party as superior as this one, with as prominent as these, this dress code may have been a relief. Each day involved a different sumptuous venue theme as, well was titled “An Evening in Neverland,” where guests wore elegant cocktail attire, and the event was decorated with archways of enchanting floral designs. Day 2 was themed, “A Walk on the Wildside”, the dress code being ‘jungle fever furnaced with exotic animals and peacock emblems. On the third day, they promised a jubilant carnival-themed “Mela Rouge” theme, with spectacular performances and a firework exhibit.
Day 1 Venue Theme
Day 2 Venue Theme
The Times of India explained the inner workings of the excessive pre-wedding spending, with twenty-one chefs preparing “75 types of dishes for breakfast, more than 225 types of dishes for lunch, 275 types of dishes for dinner, and 85 types of items … [for] the midnight meal.” However, many observers have voiced their distaste for this flashy spending.
Controversies of the Pre-wedding
Various judgments were made on the shameless excessiveness of Ambani’s pre-wedding celebration. The contrast between the flamboyant opulence of Ambani’s event and the poor “Gujarati slums” was unsettling and frowned upon by many. Some even made a connection to the intemperate, flashy, and excessive consumerism of the wealthy in the 20s and 80s.
Undeniably, Ambani’s son and his soon-to-be wife’s pre-wedding was one like no other, but if anything should be celebrated so extravagantly, why not make it love?
