Nita Ambani was the 'CEO' behind the wedding that drew global A-listers to Mumbai over the weekend, daughter-in-law says
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- Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant got married in a star-studded ceremony in Mumbai over the weekend.
- Merchant credited her mother-in-law, Nita Ambani, for planning the festivities.
- It takes a whole crew of professionals to pull off a large-scale Indian wedding, experts say.
Anant Ambani — the son of Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani — married Radhika Merchant over the weekend. The newlyweds have heaped praise on Nita Ambani, the groom's mother, for the way the festivities turned out.
"My mother-in-law was the C.E.O. of the wedding, as I like to say," Merchant told Vogue in an exclusive interview. "It was Nita's commitment and vision that brought our entire celebration to life."
Nita Ambani oversaw the planning of the wedding festivities alongside her daughter, Isha Ambani, and her daughter-in-law, Shloka Ambani, Merchant said.
In addition to their in-house staff, the Ambanis also engaged the help of event planners to pull off the celebrations, per Vogue. The festivities took place over multiple weeks and culminated in a three-day wedding ceremony in Mumbai over the weekend.
The couple kicked off the festivities with a pre-wedding party in March, which featured some 1,200 guests, including business leaders like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.
During a speech at the pre-wedding bash, Anant thanked his mother for working tirelessly over months to make the party happen.
"All this is created by my mother and no one else, and my mother has gone all out for the last four months," Anant can be heard saying in a video of the speech uploaded in March. "She's worked for, I think, 18, 19 hours a day, and I'm extremely grateful to Mama. Thank you so much."
Ambani's pre-wedding parties included performances from Justin Bieber and Rihanna, among other celebrities.
Shadows, chefs, technicians: The staff behind a massive wedding
While the newlyweds have been generous in their praise of Nita's work for the wedding, it takes a massive crew of professionals to pull off such an event. A multi-day Indian celebrity wedding can require around 500 staff, wedding planners previously told Business Insider.
In addition to chefs, waiters, decorators, and technicians, each main family member may also be assigned a personal butler, or "shadow," during the wedding to manage their needs, from holding their phones to ensuring hydration, the wedding planners said. Top security firms and local authorities may even be engaged to protect high-profile guests.
The planners BI spoke to said a typical three-day wedding that they plan costs about $1.2 million. A spokesperson for the Ambanis did not respond to a request for comment about the costs for Anant's wedding, which was hosted at the Ambani-owned Jio World Convention Centre.
The wedding festivities sparked some controversy over the weekend due to disruptions caused by traffic diversions and road closures. Nevertheless, the planners BI spoke to expect the scale of the wedding to leave a global impact on the wedding-planning industry.
"Given the immense influence celebrities have, their weddings often become blueprints for future celebrations worldwide," Bharat Jagasia, a Delhi-based wedding planner, told BI.