Rihanna, Mughals and Bollywood stars to attend son Ambani’s bridal shower

Mukesh Ambani, head of Indian conglomerate Reliance and Asia’s richest man with a net worth of $114 billion according to Forbes, is known for never doing things by halves.

The momentous occasion that has enthralled India is the three-day pre-wedding jamboree of his younger son Anant Ambani, 28, who is set to marry his longtime girlfriend Radhika Merchant, 29. The festivities will begin on Friday, welcoming 1,200 guests and taking place in a township of Jamnagar near Reliance’s main oil refinery in Gujarat state in the country’s west.

The actual wedding would not take place until July, and the festivities effectively began on Wednesday, when Ananth and his bride-to-be hosted a community dinner for local villagers that served 51,000 people.

Apart from pop and R&B superstar Rihanna, American magician David Blaine will perform and traditional ceremonies will take place at a temple complex.

Bill Gates, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Indian billionaires Gautam Adani and Kumar Mangalam Birla as well as several cricketers and Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan are expected to attend Anant’s bridal shower, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the event. are supposed to. Declined to be identified.

Disney CEO Bob Iger, who on Wednesday announced the merger of its Indian media assets with Reliance for an amount of $8.5 billion, is also expected to be present.

Anant is the director of Reliance’s new energy business and is one of Ambani’s three children who are heirs to his empire. Merchant is a director of Indian company Encore Healthcare.

Ambani also made headlines with his daughter Isha’s wedding in 2018, which some described as a mini-Davos summit. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry were also among those who danced with Bollywood stars at that time.

At the Anant Ambani event, guests will be able to taste 500 dishes prepared by around 100 chefs.

They will be pampered – hairdressers, makeup artists and Indian drapers are at their disposal, but only on a “first come, first served” basis, according to an organizing document provided to guests and seen by Reuters .

They will visit a rescue center which Reliance says is home to more than 2,000 animals and is one of the largest elephant hospitals in the world. The dress code is “Jungle Fever” and guests are advised to wear animal print clothing or Hawaiian shirts.

Round-trip charter flights are available from New Delhi and Mumbai, but visitors are asked to be limited to two pieces of luggage or three suitcases per couple. The document specifies that “if you take more”, it is not guaranteed that they will arrive on the same flight.

Travelers are also advised to exercise caution when it comes to laundry services.

“All clothes handed over to the steam press will be returned within three hours… It is not possible to wait or ask for anything before that,” the document said.