Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant wedding

I find it hard to believe the amount of money everybody seems to spend on weddings these days, it seems to be more about 'the day' than actually the fact of being married, but this is just on another scale altogether. Apparently it has been going on for 4 months!! I think I'd be bored stiff by the end of it all.

Traditinally Indian weddings whether Hindu or Muslim are huge. The celebrations should rightly be seen as part of the bride's dowry and the huge number of guests reflect well on the financial status and generosity of the bride's parents.

I am always suprised that people comment upon this, as somewhere between 200 and 300 guests were common in the West of Scotland, even amongst Lowlands Scots when I was a child. A Highland wedding would be much bigger.

Lists were kept of who had given the young couple a present and what it was, so that they and their parents could reciprocate suitably when somone from the giver's family married.

Now that family feeling is not the big thing it was then, you see brides and bridegrooms aplenty spending an amount on their wedding that would have been a suitable down payment on a house.

If there really any difference between doing this and celebrating a traditional Indian wedding?

I frequently wear saris myself and have seen many men and boys with no Scottish relatives at all wear kilts, or play the bag-pipes. To me this is a nice compliment to a culture, not "cultural appropriation" whatever was meant by that term, but I gathered it was used disapprovingly.

Yeah, great to have such a lavish occasion, it maybe helps the economy of Mumbai in the short term, but then you see the wee ones living in absolute poverty and families struggling on hand outs unable to lift themselves out of this, and it is just wrong, it highlights what's wrong with the widening gap between rich and poor globally (there is a big difference between those "able to get by" in contrast to "living in poverty"). Also, this is by the by, but I can't think what she sees in him...

You can hire elephants in Leicester???

Never heard of them.

We were at a lovely hotel in Khao Lak in Thailand in 2019 where an Indian wedding took place. The dress of all the relatives and guests were amazing. They were quite happy for the hotel’s other guests to observe the proceedings. The hotel had a series of mini canals within the grounds and the bride arrived by gondola and onto the beach surrounded by dry ice.

That is the last long haul holiday we had as I don’t think I could handle a 12 hour flight any longer.

Thank you Macadia for posting - I had thought about to post about it.

This is the second huge wedding in India. These families have the money, they've earned it and it's their business how they spend it. Estimates are as high as $600million overall for this latest wedding. Some posters have pointed out that they are philanthropists. But these weddings (and the Indian space programme) make me question why we send foreign aid to India - calculated at £2.3bn between 2016 and 2021 - and still there is abject poverty in parts of India.

There is wealthy and then there is wealthy. For me personally, I see displays of wealth like this as cold and empty. Inviting people you barely know to your wedding for publicity to me is like the ultimate in emptiness. Mumbai is a filthy super poor city in India, how do you with a clear conscious have a wedding like this in the face of some of the worst poverty in the world? And what's worse is when our society views this as wonderful.

i don't know much about the wedding but when I worked (about 15 years ago) , I mentioned that I thought £7000 was a lot to spend on a wedding . Both Asian colleagues said it was common and in actual fact was below what would have been expected. Both came from a normal working class background so in real terms this wedding seems about on par

It seems to be all about if you can spend more money and score more slebs than the last people did. Obscene. Spend half the money and build a few schools and hospitals instead.
To be fair, do I need another cashmere cardigan? Not really but I buy it anyway when I could have donated what it cost to charity.
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petra

Macadia

A new word for me: Bhandara. I just learned about all of the free meals given to the surrounding community for days: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/non-stop-bhandara-at-antilia-continues-large-hearted-anant-ambani-ensures-a-celebration-for-all/articleshow/111761125.cms

I like that tradition !

How gracious of them.
With a fraction of their wealth they could feed and house every homeless and hungry person in India.
The grooms father is worth 221 billion dollars
Just in case some don’t understand how big one billion is this will explain.
One million seconds is 11 days.
One * billion* seconds is 31 years
The father has 221 billion
Obscene 😡

This. To me it all smacks of showing off. A cultural thing no doubt. Goes against the grain of my culture. Can I say that?

When I was working in a school in the city centre, we had a number of pupils from other ethnicities, including many from the Bangladeshi community. When it was Eid we had an Eid party and the lovely Bangladeshi mums dressed the staff, if they wanted to, in beautiful saris. I was dressed a number of years and loved wearing those saris.I had a photo taken one year but I can’t show it as it wasn’t digital and I’m unsure where it is. I loved those parties, and our Bangladeshi community really appreciated us doing that. I also had mehndi patterns on my hands which I loved. So I don’t think most communities have any truck with that. Those lovely ladies wouldn’t have dressed us if they thought it offensive. They seemed to enjoy including us.

Totally agree with petra and keeping quiet : it is an utterly gross display of wealth and makes me angry and despairing. If I had been the Blairs the invitation would have been turned down. I hope those celebrities who were paid to attend donate the money to a good cause…or am I being ridiculously naive to think that would occur to them?

Most countries have families like this with more money than sense. Although, in the UK, most are tax exiles (think Richard Branson and (Sir Philip Green).

All these rich people and many less rich could go round handing out free food. remember the Duke of Westminster's wedding a month or so ago. He paid for several ice cream parlours to hand out free ice cream all day.

Remember that much of this 'obscene wealth' is not money in the bank but companies that make things, do things, employ people.

I suspect that poverty in this country could be resolved if all those people with houses worth more than £1 million sold them and gave the spare cash to the poor.

Many of us have houses worth more than £1m. If we were to sell them what ‘spare cash’ would that produce?

“Many of us have houses over a million”? Wow! Many? Really?

I rather think not, but if one were so fortunate then moving somewhere smaller and cheaper would produce some spare cash.

I don’t know where you live, but that’s pretty normal in many areas. And if you had such a house, why would you want to move somewhere cheaper just to free up some cash to give to the poor?

I don’t mind paying tax to make life better ‘for the poor’
This city of sanctuary has ver few houses worth one million. We have some excellent charities that ‘help the poot’

Maybe we should all just sell everything and give the money away to 'the poor'. Then wed be the poor!
There are many reasons for houses to be worth a million. Prices have crept up. Suddenly houses that cost very little when bought years ago are worth much more. Alternatively, people study, then work hard, save money, don't spend it on expensive holidays etc and prioritise buying a good house. Others may have set up businesses employing others and may make sufficient money by their efforts to have expensive houses.
The Ambanis have almost unimaginable wealth but they have created jobs for thousands and shared their wedding celebrations with those less fortunate than themselves. It's a bit tacky paying for celebrations to attend but it's their choice.

Celebrities

I live about 14 miles from central London on the outer London borders in a detached house in an ordinary town and was questioning your statement that ‘Many of us live in houses worth over a million’. I would say it’s the few not the many.
Last time I heard the average cost of a house in the uk was about £300k.

silverlining48

“Many of us have houses over a million”? Wow! Many? Really?

I rather think not, but if one were so fortunate then moving somewhere smaller and cheaper would produce some spare cash.

But why should we move somewhere smaller and cheaper? probably away from friends, families and social life?

It is generally known that one of the biggest destroyers of the physical and mental health of older people is loneliness.

Producing spare cash by selling up was discussed up thread.

I know absolutely nothing about this wedding or the families involved other than the comments on this thread.

I am of the opinion that if anyone has earned (or even inherited) their money legally, paid their taxes etc., then they are free to spend it as they wish as long as it is legal and doesn’t harm anyone else.

Just had a quick google and found that 2.5 % of the population have houses worth more than a million £s.
The vast majority do not.