Decoding Anant Ambani’s Big Fat Indian Wedding To Radhika Merchant

Jamnagar is a small industrial town, rarely characterised as a tourist destination, despite its serene coastal location in India’s western state of Gujarat. In fact, the city did not even have an international airport until Anant Ambani, youngest son of India’s richest man - Mukesh Amabani, chose to host his pre-wedding celebrations in the city whilst converting it into an analogous royal state.

In the week leading up to Anant’s pre-wedding festivities with his betrothed Radhika Merchant, the city was turned into a festive fortress to host around a 1500 special guests including VIPs - Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Sundar Pichai, Ivanka Trump as well as private performances by Rihanna and various Bollywood celebrities.

One might wonder, why the richest family in India that celebrated the pre-wedding festivities of its other heirs in popular and posh locales of Italy choose a low profile Indian city for its next big wedding?

Jamnagar is the birthplace of Ambani family’s multi billion dollar empire. Groom Anant Ambani chose Jamnagar because he wanted to pay respect to the city where his father and grandfather started building Reliance industries (now headquartered in Mumbai). “And because our Prime Minister said that one should get married in India”, Anant reasoned in a TV interview, referring to a national speech by Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi in January, where he called for the promotion of destination weddings within India.

The three days pre-wedding festivities are rumoured to have cost nearly $152 million (€139 million) including approximately €8 million paid to Rihanna for a private performance. This was Rihanna’s first ever concert in India. The extensive spends were on superlative decor designed by Indian couturier Manish Malhotra with florals by American floral designer Jeff Leatham and private jets rented to fly in VIP guests from around the world.

The €139 million figure does not count the wedding wardrobe of the Ambani family and bride Radhika Merchant which ranged from bespoke Vercace gowns to traditional Indian couture made with natural diamonds and gold. Their wedding jewellery, an essential part of Indian culture included jaw dropping rare emeralds and diamond ornaments costing another hundreds of millions of euros

For the first pre-wedding function, Radhika wore the custom Versace gown originally designed for Blake Lively for Met Gala 2022, but in different colours. Groom Anant Ambani, an avid watch collector was spotted in rare watches from Richard Mille and gem studded Patek Philippe Nautilus.

Radhika who is a professional Bharatanatyam dancer is the daughter of multimillionaire Viren Merchant, CEO of Mumbai based Encore Healthcare.

The big thing about the big fat Indian weddings is that the celebrations can go on for days as they involve various traditions and rituals. While in most cultures, wedding dates are selected by the bride and groom, in Indian culture, dates for all the wedding rituals are typically calculated as per auspicious times in the Hindu calendar. Sometimes, various auspicious dates of the wedding festivities can spread across several months, as is the case with the wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. The duo were engaged in January 2023, their pre-wedding festivities were hosted in March 2024 but the final traditional wedding, where they tie the knot, is scheduled to be hosted in early July this year.