Anant-Radhika and nine other big, fat Indian weddings
MUMBAI: Indian weddings are getting bigger and fatter by the day, thanks to the richie rich like the Ambanis, whose latest ‘I do’ between their youngest son Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant is touted to be the costliest ever in this part of the world.
Slated for Friday evening at Antilia, the billion-dollar plus Ambani residence in central Mumbai, the guest list features nearly a dozen former prime ministers and presidents among which are former British premiers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson; ex-Canadian premier Stephen Harper and ex-Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt. Other guests include former US secretary of state John Kerry, Hollywood celebrities Kim and Khloe Kardashian; Aramco chief Amin Nasser, Samsung group chief executive Jay Lee, just to name a few.
The couple’s pre-wedding ceremonies in March held over a week at the sprawling private wildlife sanctuary Vantara in Jamnagar had guests like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, ex-Us president Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, Qatari premier Mohammed bin Abdulrahman and the Bhutanese king and the queen along with the performance of Rihanna, and a Moulin Rouge-themed bash.
That of course the event also hogged negative headlines as it allegedly broke many a rule is another story: a temporary customs and immigration office at a private airstrip and alleged cruelty to wild animals among others.
Between May 29 and June 1, the Ambanis hired a Mediterranean luxury cruise line from Palmero to Portofino just for revelry that featured Katy Perry, the Backstreet Boys and Pitbull along with Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh.
A recent foreign brokerage report has pegged the size of the wedding market in the country at $130 billion annually, which sadly is more than double of what we invest in education as a nation. Stated differently, this is second only to our national groceries bills, and is also the world’s second largest wedding market after China, according to Western brokerage Jefferies.
The country annually blesses around 10 million weddings making it arguably the largest wedding destination worldwide, bigger than China and the US in terms of numbers.
The report pegs that an average Indian spends Rs 12 lakh on a wedding, which in some cases far exceeds the money they spent on the 18 years of education. Compared globally, the country’s wedding spend-to-GDP ratio stands at 5x, significantly higher than several other economies, according to the Jefferies.
