Most Expensive Wedding: Earlier this year, billionaire Mukesh Ambani — Asia’s richest man– set a new benchmark in lavish weddings by spending an estimated $600 million, or Rs 5,000 crore, on the wedding of his youngest son, Anant Ambani with Radhika Merchant. The Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant wedding hogged headlines globally for its sheer opulence and pomp, but did you know that 20 years ago the record for the most expensive wedding in the world was also held by an Indian billionaire?
In the year 2004, two decades before the Anant-Radhika lavish wedding, the marriage of Vanisha Mittal — the daughter of India’s steel magnate, Lakshmi Mittal — with British-Indian businessman Amit Bhatia, was etched into the record books for being the most expensive wedding in the world at the time.
Amit Bhatia, husband of Vanisha Mittal, and the son-in-law of Indian industrialist Lakshmi Mittal, is a prominent British Indian businessman, and is a founding partner of Swordfish Investments and chairman of Queens Park Rangers football club.
The Vanisha Mittal-Amit Bhatia wedding is said to have cost over Rs 240 crore with celebrations lasting for six days. The pompous affair became a living example of the big fat Indian wedding, and was officially included in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the world’s most expensive wedding at the time.
Vanisha’s big fat wedding, which took place in French capital Paris, was attended by eminent personalities from different walks of life across the world. The wedding ceremony was held at the Palace of Versailles and chefs were specially called from Jardin des Tuileries to prepare the wedding feast.
According to various reports, over 10,000 people attended the Vanisha-Amit wedding, and the celebrations witnessed performance from top Bollywood and Hollywood stars, including Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai. American singer Kylie Minogue reportedly charged Rs 1 crore for an hour’s performance.
Notably, before going all-out on their younger son’s wedding in 2024, Mukesh Ambani and Nita Ambani had also spent a whopping Rs 700 crore on the 2018 wedding of their only daughter, Isha Ambani with Anand Piramal.
