MUMBAI, India (AP) — The youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest manmarried his long-time girlfriend on Saturday morning. According to many, this was the wedding of the year. The wedding was attended by celebrities from all over the world, business magnates and politicians, underlining the billionaire’s enormous wealth and growing influence.
The wedding rituals, which include the bride and groom exchanging flower garlands and walking around the sacred fire, started friday and were completed after midnight.
The celebrations of Anant Ambani’s wedding to Radhika Merchant took place at the Ambani-owned Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai and the family home. The wedding was the culmination of months of wedding festivities that included performances by pop stars including Rihanna and Justin Bieber.
The four-day wedding celebration began on Friday with the traditional Hindu wedding ceremony and will be followed by a grand reception that will last all weekend. The guest list includes former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson; Saudi Aramco CEO Amin H. Nasser; and Adele, Lana Del Rey, Drake and David Beckham, according to local media. The Ambani family has not confirmed the guest list.
Television news channels showed celebrities such as Kim Kardashian in a red suit and the arrival of professional wrestler and Hollywood actor John Cena.
Kardashian sisters Kim and Khloe took a ride in a motorized rickshaw through the busy streets of Mumbai on Friday before joining the wedding ceremony, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
International guests wore traditional clothing by major Indian fashion designers. They wore embroidered sherwanis — long-sleeved outer coats worn by men in South Asia. Cena wore a sky-blue sherwani and white pants. Nick Jonas wore a pink sherwani and white pants.
Bollywood icons Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Ranbir Kapoor attended the wedding and danced to popular Hindi film songs. Indian cricketers including icons Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav were among the guests.
Police have imposed traffic diversions around the wedding venue from Friday to Monday to handle the influx of guests who had flown into Mumbai. heavy monsoon rains have caused flooding and flight disruptions over the past week.
The extravaganza and display of opulence accompanying the wedding has led many to ask questions about the growing inequality in India, where the gap between rich and poor is growingThe incident has also angered some Mumbai residents, who say they are experiencing traffic congestion.
“It affects our income. I don’t care much about the wedding,” said Vikram, a taxi driver who goes by one name.
The groom’s father, Mukesh Ambani, is the ninth richest man in the world, with a net worth of $116 billion, according to Forbes. He is the richest person in Asia. His Reliance Industries is a conglomerate that reports more than $100 billion in annual revenue, with interests in petrochemicals, oil and gas, telecoms and retail, among others.
The Ambani family owns, among other things, a 27-storey family complex in Mumbai worth $1 billion. The building contains three helipads, a garage for 160 cars and a private cinema.
The groom, Anant, 29, oversees the conglomerate’s renewable and green energy expansion. He also runs a 3,000-acre (about 1,200 hectare) animal sanctuary in Jamnagar, the family’s hometown in Gujarat state.
The bride, Radhika Merchant, also 29, is the daughter of pharmacist Viren Merchant and is marketing director for his company, Encore Healthcare, Vogue reported.
In this photo provided by Reliance Industries, Anant Ambani (left), the son of billionaire Mukesh Ambani, holds hands with Radhika Merchant during their wedding ceremony at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai. (Reliance Industries via AP)
Critics of Ambani say his company relied on political connections during Congress-led governments in the 1970s and 1980s, and under Prime Minister Narendra Modi after 2014.
The festivities leading up to the Ambani family’s wedding have been lavish and star-studded from the start.
In March they are organized a three-day wedding party for Anant, which had 1,200 guests including former world leaders, tech moguls and Bollywood megastars, and performances by Rihanna, Akon and Diljit Dosanjh, a Punjabi singer who rose to international fame when he performed at Coachella. The event was also attended by tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.
It was the start of months of lavish festivities leading up to the wedding, which made headlines and caused a social media frenzy.
In May, the family took guests on a three-day cruise from Italy to France, during which Katy Perry sang her hit “Firework” and Pitbull performed, media reports said.
The family also organized a mass wedding for more than 50 underprivileged couples on July 2 as part of the festivities.
Last week, Justin Bieber performed for hundreds of guests at a concert in honor of his wedding. Among the performers were Bollywood stars Alia Bhatt, Ranveer Singh and Salman Khan.
Ambani also made headlines in 2018 when Beyoncé performed at the festivities celebrating his daughter’s weddingFormer US secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and John Kerry were among those who interacted with Indian celebrities and Bollywood stars in the western Indian city of Udaipur.