India’s lavish Ambani wedding, explained : NPR

What are reality TV star Kim Kardashian, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and famous Indian cricketer Jasprit Bumrah all doing in the same room together?

Attending a wedding, of course.

Anati Ambani, the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in Asia, married Radhika Merchant in a three-day wedding ceremony in Mumbai this weekend.

The event, which has been criticized for being a display of extreme privilege in an impoverished country, has been capturing headlines for most of the year, as pre-wedding ceremonies and celebrations have featured appearances by some of the most famous names in the world.

The wedding is estimated to cost around $132 million to $156 million, but the exact figure is unknown.

Anant Ambani and his fiancée Radhika Merchant pose for a picture during their Sangeet ceremony in Mumbai, on July 5.

Sujit Jaiswal/AFP via Getty Images

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Sujit Jaiswal/AFP via Getty Images

This isn’t the first time the Ambanis have made headlines for their lavish weddings: In 2018, Beyoncé performed a concert at a pre-wedding celebration of Isha Ambani, the daughter of Mukesh Ambani.

Mukesh Ambani is the owner of Reliance Industries, a multinational conglomerate that sells everything from petrochemicals to cheap phones.

Indian weddings are known to be lavish, opulent affairs, with multiple religious ceremonies and parties to celebrate the groom and bride. It’s a multibillion-dollar industry, making it the second-largest wedding market in the world, behind the United States.

Indian weddings stand out because they go on for multiple days, with different events and celebrations that each have their own cultural significance.

The Ambani wedding is no exception. Celebrations started four months before the wedding on Friday.

Indian weddings differ greatly depending on which region of India families are from, and can be much smaller in some cases. The Ambanis are from Gujarat, a state in Northern India, and they have followed many of the typical customs of that region.

The wedding itself

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani (center) takes his son Anant Ambani by the hand as they walk with Nita Ambani (right) at the wedding in Mumbai on Friday.

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On Monday, the week’s wedding celebrations started with a private haldi ceremony. In a haldi ceremony, a turmeric paste is spread on the bride and groom’s face or bodies by their friends and family. Haldi, which means turmeric in Hindi, is well known for its anti-inflammatory and healing properties. Some consider haldi to have a purifying effect on the bride and groom. The ceremony is usually private and attended by only the closest friends and families, a tradition the Ambanis followed.

The wedding itself began on Friday and lasted well into the next day. The main ceremony took place in Mumbai’s Jio World Convention Center, which has a capacity of 16,000 people. A red carpet was rolled out for the guests, who included wrestler and actor John Cena, singer Nick Jonas and reality TV stars Kim and Khole Kardashian.

American actor and professional wrestler John Cena gestures as he arrives at the wedding in Mumbai on Friday.

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A traditional Hindu wedding usually has the bride and groom tied together with a piece of cloth as the groom leads the bride around a pit of fire seven times. These are called the pheras, or the marriage vows. A pundit, or Hindu priest, usually chants the vows in Sanskrit as the couple circle the flames.

Each round around the fire symbolizes a different commitment the bride and groom are making to each other and to God. Once the vows are over, the couple is officially married. The ceremony can take anywhere from 45 minutes to three hours depending on the exact traditions the couple is following.

The crowd at the Ambani wedding was so large that police had to divert traffic around the venue It’s monsoon season in India, and heavy rains have been disrupting flights into Mumbai all week.

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani (left) waves to photographers as he poses with his family members on the occasion of engagement of his son Anant Ambani (third from left), with Radhika Merchant (second from left) during a ceremony in Mumbai, on Jan. 19, 2023.

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The (multiple) engagement ceremonies

After a quiet proposal at a temple in December, Radhika Merchant took part in her first engagement celebration in January: a traditional Indian mehndi ceremony. The ceremony, also known as a henna ceremony, is typically held the night before a wedding. The bride has henna, a type of dye that leaves a red-orange stain, applied to her hands and feet. Mehndi ceremonies are usually organized by the bride’s side of the family, and are meant as a way to give the bride a chance to relax, as henna takes a few hours to develop after applying.

After that ceremony, the pair held a gol dhana ceremony, a Gurjati engagement event in which sweets made of coriander seeds are exchanged by the bride and groom. Typically, the bride arrives at the groom’s house with these sweets and other gifts, which are exchanged between families to symbolize their engagement.

Ambani’s gol dhana ceremony drew in some of the biggest names in Bollywood, including actors Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan, who are household names in India.

The pre-wedding celebrations, cruises and performances

The wedding first made headlines when singer Rihanna performed at a pre-wedding celebration in the family’s hometown in March. The 1,200-guest list included Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

Shortly after their star-studded event, the family set off on a four-dayEuropean cruise on a luxury ship. There was a strict no-phones policy, but leaked footage showed singers including Pitbull and the Backstreet Boys performing on the yacht. Katy Perryalso performed for the familyat one of their stops on their cruise.

The Ambanis didn’t just settle for one ultra-rare performance at their pre-wedding festivities: just last week, Justin Bieber performed at yet another pre-wedding celebration at an arts center in Mumbai founded by Anant Merchant’s mother.

Although the Bieber performance was what was officially given the title, all of these parties, spanning multiple continents and months, might be considered part of a sangeet. Usually, the sangeet is a day-long celebration of dancing and music before the wedding. Family members will usually perform a choreographed dance to a Bollywood song, leading up to a final dance between the bride and groom, symbolizing the two families becoming one. The word sangeet is Sanskrit literally means “sung together”

People walk past the Antilia mansion, house of billionaire Mukesh Ambani, while it is lit up ahead of his son Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s wedding in Mumbai on Wednesday.

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What happens after the wedding?

Once the wedding was over, the couple engaged in the last part of a traditional Hindu ceremony, shubh ashirwad, known as the divine blessing ceremony. Here, the couple seeks blessings from community elders. Usually, the couple is showered with rose petals and rice as they walk down the aisle once again, concluding the wedding ceremonies for the bride and groom.

Up next, the Mangal Ustav, or the reception: much like an American wedding, this is a party that takes place right after the marriage ceremonies are over. Here, the now husband and wife have their first chance to dance and celebrate their new life as a married couple.

The Ambani wedding reception is expected to take place at the Ambani family’s $2 billion residence in Mumbai, and is sure to be as star-studded and extravagant as the last four months of festivities.