(L to R) Anand Piramal, Mukesh Ambani, Radhika Merchant, Anant Ambani, Neeta Ambani, Isha Ambani Piramal, Shloka Mehta Ambani and Akash Ambani pose for the media during a photo opportunity at the red carpet ceremony to celebrate the engagement of Anant and Radhika at Ambani’s Antilia residence in Mumbai, India, on Jan. 19, 2023.
Indranil Aditya | AP
The son of Asia’s richest man is set to wed his fiancée this weekend, and the lavish events both preceding and during the wedding have transfixed the world.
Mukesh Ambani is the billionaire chairman of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, and his youngest son Anant Ambani is marrying Radhika Merchant, the daughter of Viren Merchant, owner of Encore Healthcare.
They’ve enchanted onlookers with their extravagant spending on pre-wedding festivities. This includes a three day event held in the Ambani’s hometown of Jamnagar in the western Indian state of Gujarat, in March, which had 1,200 guests in attendance. This includes the elites like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan.
Guests were treated to 2,000 dishes, a performance by singer Rihanna, and a visit to the family’s animal sanctuary, according to the BBC.
The couple has since embarked on a luxury cruise with their guests across the Mediterranean, and recently held another pre-wedding bash in Mumbai which saw a performance from singer Justin Bieber.
Mukesh Ambani has a fortune of $120 billion and is estimated to have spent millions on the wedding overall. The billionaire family have spotlighted the glitz and glamour of Indian weddings on the world stage, and piqued people’s curiosity about why weddings are such a big affair in Indian culture.
“Indian heritage and culture is based on the values of family and bringing everyone together,” Priya Suglani, the founder of London-based events and wedding planning company Pristine Events, told CNBC Make It.
“It’s a very family orientated culture, which is inclusive of everyone, and that’s why they [weddings] are genuinely quite big.”
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Additionally, Indian weddings appear to be really spectacular because Indians tend to have big families, various religious and cultural events, and colorful attire and jewelry, according to Karishma Manwani, a London-based luxury wedding planner for Indian weddings.
“The combination of those things make these weddings look so glamorous… you could have an empty room and just let all the guests walk in and there’s going to be so much color. Everyone’s going to walk in with their saris, the shimmer and the glitter, the jewelry which is going to liven up the space,” Manwani told CNBC Make It in an interview.
“Even the smallest wedding is going to look very glamorous and very colorful,” she added.
Manwani plans weddings for wealthy clientele who typically spend anywhere from £200,000 ($258,000) to upward of £1 million while Suglani said her clients are spending anywhere between £40,000 to £130,000.
Manwani and Suglani explained the culture and tradition underpinning big Indian weddings.
‘It’s the start of the couple’s new life’
In Indian culture, weddings and funerals are two of the biggest events that nobody will ever decline attending, according to Manwani.
“It’s the start of the couple’s new life,” Manwani explained.
“Especially from the bride’s point of view. In the Hindu culture, they say that you have two lives. One when you’re born, and you have two families with the one that you’re born into, and then the one that you marry into, and the day of your wedding, you are born again. That’s a completely new life. Your parents are giving you away. it’s their way of showing that love.”
Manwani explained that parents save for their children’s weddings for many years, some from birth, and it’s the one occasion they splash out on.
“Indians generally don’t splash out on the day-to-day,” she said. “They’re very simple people. They’ll have a holiday once a year, but most of the time, they’ll go back to their family homes.”
“The wedding is the only time, especially the daughter’s wedding, and the son’s wedding, that they can thank people or they can show their status.”
‘Guest is god’
In India, there’s a saying that “guest is god” and it’s a code of conduct in Hindu society, Manwani noted.
“Indian couples and parents treat every guest as if they were a god,” she said. “The only request I get from my clients is ‘my guests are coming all this way. I want them to have the best time. I want them looked after. I don’t want them to be thinking about anything.'”
This means providing a variety of foods to satisfy all their guests’ requirements whether they’re vegetarian or vegan; having welcome hampers in hotel rooms, and other conveniences like safety pins, sari drapes, or hair and makeup services.
The huge focus on hospitality is also rooted in Indians building communities wherever they go, especially if they live abroad.
“They build this community around them, the neighbors, shop neighbors, people who work in your stores. If you have a garage, people who are working there, they treat them like family,” she said.
“The wedding is the one time in your life that you would give back to everyone because you’ve been invited to so many weddings, you’ve been invited to so many people’s homes, you’ve been looked after.”
Status symbol
There’s a sense of pride that comes with hosting a wedding in Indian culture, according to Suglani. Although this doesn’t apply to all Indians, some families want to show what they’ve put together and the family’s success.
“There are definitely some families that do these big events to show their status and their wealth and their place,” Suglani said.
“This is especially if it’s the first wedding in their family or the first grandchild, like people do want to go all out because it is a special, momentous moment.”
Manwani added that Indians don’t generally go all out for other life events like birthday parties or anniversaries, so weddings are the one time they can show off. “It is a status symbol,” Manwani said. “It’s a way of showing the status. It’s to show that this is who we are, this is our family, this is what we do.”