The 7 Most Expensive Items at an Over-the-Top Billionaire Wedding
Written by
Vance Cariaga
Edited by
Daria Uhlig
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Weddings are expensive affairs, costing American couples an average of $30,000 to $35,000. That represents more than half of the median salary in the U.S., which is just less than $60,000 a year, according to the latest Labor Department data. But it’s still a drop in the bucket compared with what the wealthiest people spend on weddings.
If you took that $35,000 average wedding cost and multiplied it by 17,000, it still wouldn’t be enough to fund a recent mega-wedding in India.
That wedding, between Indian billionaire Anant Ambani and the similarly wealthy Radhika Merchant, wrapped up earlier this month in Mumbai to great fanfare (and media attention). The cost for everything — including festivities before and after the event — was estimated as high as $600 million by The Guardian.
As The Guardian reported, the wedding’s “warm up” began in March with a pre-wedding party that included entertainment by Rihanna, who was paid in the neighborhood of $6 million to put on her first live show in eight years. The 1,200 guests included Bill Gates, Hillary Clinton, Ivanka Trump and Mark Zuckerberg.
Next up was an 800-guest pre-wedding cruise around the Mediterranean that cost about $150 million and featured performances by Andrea Bocelli, Katy Perry, the Backstreet Boys and Pitbull. A later traditional pre-wedding night of dancing and music cost a reported $10 million and featured a performance from Justin Bieber.
The wedding invitations alone cost upwards of $7,000 each, according to Architectural Digest. The bride’s various outfits included a custom Versace dress, a vintage Yves St. Laurent cocktail dress and a toga with a “3D-printed aluminum breastplate made by at least 30 people,” The Wall Street Journal reported, citing comments Merchant gave to Vogue India.
The groom’s mother wore a necklace with emerald pendants “the size of small bars of soap,” the WSJ added. Some of the events took place in a glass palace made especially for the occasion. The estimated cost of the wedding itself was around $100 million.
Even by the standards of luxury weddings in India — which typically cost closer to $2 million — the Merchant-Ambani affair was on a completely different scale. Of course, it helps that the father of Anant Ambani is Mukesh Ambani, head of Reliance Industries and India’s richest man. Radhika Merchant also comes from a wealthy business family.
If you’re thinking about a luxury wedding, expect to spend anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 and up, according to Matthew Oliver International Wedding Planners. If you’re a billionaire, you might push that cost up to at least $1 million.
Here’s what a billionaire looking to stay within a $1 million wedding budget might spend their money on, based on typical median budget percentages provided by Matthew Oliver International Wedding Planners:
- Venue and catering: $350,000
- Decor and flowers: $150,000
- Wedding planner: $150,000
- Accommodations and travel: $100,000
- Attire and jewelry: $100,000
- Photography and videography: $75,000
- Entertainment: $75,000
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