The marriage of the son of India's richest man, the billionaire Mukesh Ambani, to the daughter of a millionaire was never going to be a humble affair. The industrialist is worth an estimated $120bn (£92bn) and over the years the Ambani family has not shied away from flashing its cash extravagantly, whether on the world's most expensive home -a 27-storey skyscraper mansion that towers over Mumbai - or on what was previously India's most expensive wedding, spending almost $100m on their daughter's nuptials in 2018, where Beyoncé performed.
Yet even for the Ambani family, the months-long celebrations that have built up to the wedding of the youngest son, 29-year-old Anant Ambani, to Radhika Merchant, the daughter of a pharmaceutical tycoon, have reached pinnacles of opulence.
The event has dominated headlines, in India and globally, for months, with the actual three-day wedding beginning yesterday in Mumbai. Estimates say the fivemonth wedding spectacle is likely to cost upwards of $600m - an eyewatering sum that still accounts for only 0.5% of the Ambani fortune.
In domestic media, which has obsessively reported the affair, it is now regularly referred to as "India's own royal wedding", a nod to the status that the Ambani family holds, with everyone from Bollywood stars to the country's most powerful politicians seemingly at their beck and call.
This story is from the July 13, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the July 13, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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