IF YOU WERE the type of bride who was scared of being upstaged by a guest, the last thing you’d want to do is invite Beyoncé to sing at your wedding. However, the Ambani family have so much money that Beyoncé wasn’t even the main focus of their recent pre-wedding party, which she performed at as part of the week-long celebrations for the marriage of Isha Ambani and Anand Piramal.
27-year-old Isha is the daughter of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, and she’s set to wed 33-year-old Anand Piramal, a real-estate developer and childhood friend of hers. Isha grew up in India but had her third level education in America, where she graduated from Yale with an undergrad in Psychology and Indian studies. Already, she’s worth $660 million and runs an online fashion retailer called AJIO.
According to the NY Times, Isha’s father Mukesh is worth $42 billion. Mukesh Ambani’s businesses include oil, telecoms, technology and food. You’d think that Anand Piramal would be pretty anxious about marrying into such an incomprehensibly wealthy family, but he’s well-prepared for it, as his own father (Ajay Piramal) is worth $4.2 billion.
So naturally, there was no expense spared ahead of the celebrations which include five different events, with the cost of flights, catered meals and entertainment covered for guests. The bill for the wedding is estimated to be between $15-100 million, which is a lot when you consider the fact that cost of labour, services and food is way lower in India than it is in America.
The first of these events took place on Saturday, in an Indian city called Udaipur which is famous for its palaces. This is where Beyoncé performed for 45 minutes to a room full of India (and America’s) elite. Guests from America included Hillary Clinton and former Secretary of State John Jerry who were dancing to bhangra together, according to India Today.
Beyoncé’s performance took place on a pretty large stage for a private function with an estimated 2,000 guests and it involved a couple of outfit changes.
Time Magazine reckon that Beyoncé was paid at least $3-4 million for 45 minutes work, as that was how much she charged for Coachella.
The obsession with this wedding in India was akin to that surrounding the Royal wedding in the UK earlier this year, and there has been plenty of media coverage this week. A wedding guest (who did not want to be named in case they got in trouble for discussing the Ambani family’s private affairs) told the New York Times that every invitation to the celebrations arrived in a Dolce and Gabbana box with pink and gold lace, and detachable chains that could be worn as jewellery.
The actual wedding ceremony itself takes place today in Mukesh Ambani’s 27-story home in Mumbai.
Obviously, considering all of the excess, there have been plenty of critics who have pointed out that such an event is a sin in a country with rampant poverty.
Am I the only one who feels that spending Rs 720 Crores on a wedding is plain vulgar? #AmbaniWedding
— Saumya Baijal (@saumyabaijal) December 12, 2018
Imagine the impact #AmbaniWedding would have had if Mukesh donated hundreds of crores spent on silly dance & music extravaganza & charter flts to social causes: weddings of orphans/free eye care of lakhs etc & the couple had a simple wedding in a temple & got blessed by lakhs.
— K. C. Singh (@ambkcsingh) December 9, 2018
As with the Royal wedding, there are just as many people who think that critics should keep these ‘negative’ views to themselves. Check out the #AmbaniWedding hashtag on Twitter if you want to see hundreds of people try and argue that it’s completely reasonable for one man to hoard that much wealth.
