Rs 1250 Cr. Pre-Wedding: Ambani’s Grand Bash attracts Global Attention
If you really thought wedding clubs ranging under Rs 100 crores were expensive, I want you to grab a tall glass of cold water, sit down at a place from where you can’t fall before I reveal to you the cost of Radhika Merchant’s and Anant Ambani’s Pre-Wedding. Yes, you read me right, a PRE-WEDDING! The costing of the same stood at a whopping Rs 1250 Crore. And now you know why I asked you to sit. Laced in grandiose, right from the invitation of the Pre-Wedding to the actual festivities held in the small city of Jamnagar, Gujarat, it has shocked the citizens both in the home country and globally alike.
It is the Pre-Wedding of the Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani’s younger son, Anant Ambani, and to expect it to be a star-studded affair is one thing but the guest list actually spanning to cover over 2000 guests is quite another. The spectrum of guests is wide-ranging with global elites and celebrities. From film industry stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Rajnikanth, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar to sporting legends like Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and Sachin Tendulkar were the few noted presence among many.
The global elites included Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and the King and Queen of Bhutan. Phew, I could sit with my laptop typing away all day yet I would be halfway through the guest list. But, any person of significance both globally or in India had their presence in Jamnagar.
Now, if you have been on any social media like Instagram, X or YouTube Shorts in the past two-three days, it is unlikely that you may have missed content flowing in from Jamnagar because believe it or not, a lot of people aim to be milking money from this. It is nothing short of a race to be the first one in line to post Merchant and Ambani’s content, which would explain the overly enthusiastic paparazzi culture of our glorious country. But, that’s a commentary for another time so I will save it for later.
Like other netizens, I will admit that I am guilty of scrolling through the same reels that we have now accumulated more than a billion views combined. And one such reel that collectively left us all in shock was Rihanna’s arrival in India for the Pre-Wedding and her gigantic piles of luggage that followed. Rihanna’s performance in Jamnagar has been the centre of enormous appreciation and rightfully so, she is Bad Girl RIRI for a reason! Beyond that, if you look there are numerous reels floating around where Rihanna is clicking pictures with the Indian paparazzis in a close proximity or hugging the female Police Personnels. This has further garnered Rihanna much validation and praise by the netizens. However, if you just turn back the pages of Instagram to a couple of months back, you would witness a sharp contrast to the “slay queen” or “you go, boo”.
Throwback to February of 2023, Rihanna made a tweet on X where she shared a picture of the Farmers Protest in the country with the caption that read, “why aren’t we talking about this?!”
This was the time where the exact netizens along with the same celebrities didn’t hold back from calling her out for interfering in the country’s internal affairs. The platform X was temporarily flooded with tweets digging dirt on Rihanna and bashing her. That lasted obviously till they found their next victim to talk down on. Personally, I think it is high time that we, collectively as individuals, start thinking about the impact of our comments online and how much potential they hold to negatively impact the individual. Living in a fast-paced society has translated to everything quicker – judgements, forgetfulness and relevance. (Now, that’s a good thought to delve into on a sleepless night.)
But, moving on. The festivities lasted three days, that is from March 1st through 3rd, had every single day designated to something specific, which was detailed in the nine-paged invitation. The Day One has a lineup of a special drone show followed by the stupendous performance of Rihanna. The day went ahead with the theme ‘An Evening in Everland’ which primarily looked at high fashion and style mainly in the form of cocktail attire. There was an address by Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant as a couple paired with an address by Nita Ambani where she, emotional, spoke about her son and her two “important wishes” as to why Jamnagar was chosen as the destination for the Pre-Wedding.
Following this, the second day themed ‘A Walk on the Wildside’ where the dress code was ‘Jungle Fever’. This took place in Ambani’s outdoor animal rescue and rehabilitation centre in Jamnagar and all the celebrities donned animal prints to pay tribute to Anant Ambani’s passion for animals and the rescue work he engages himself in. Once through with this, the guests were escorted to ‘Mela Rouge’ of desi activities. The dress code for the ‘Mela Rouge’ was South-Asian attire. The overall energy of this day was witnessed to be at an all time high with electrifying performances from various celebrities along with other adorable moments of the Ambani family.
The third day was designated for ‘Tusker Trails’ and ‘Hastakshar’. The former was an outdoor affair where guests could enjoy the natural beauty of Jamnagar while the latter is the very last event of the Pre-Wedding where the guests are required to dress in heritage Indian attire. The night was accompanied by a masterclass performance from Akon and the stars grooved to the tunes of Chammak Challo.
No Indian function is ever considered successful in all its entirety unless it has a good selection of food, which would explain why the Ambani’s flew in a team of 21 chefs including 20 women from Indore to have their guests delight in the lip-smacking, delectable flavours.
Now, it is time for me to sign off from my end but do let us know your favourite moment from the Pre-Wedding celebrations. Be it Jeh’s (Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor’s youngest) funny expressions to the jaw-dropping looks from the functions to the celebrities lining up for a bus ride, we would love to know it all!
By Deepali Verma
