- Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant hosted their pre-wedding celebrations the weekend of March 1.
- The elaborate parties were all hosted at the Ambani family's home.
Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's pre-wedding celebrations captured global attention.
Anant Ambani, the youngest son of billionaire Mukesh Ambani, proposed to Merchant in 2023. Their wedding is set for July, and to kick off the celebrations, the couple hosted a three-day pre-wedding party and a hastakshar ceremony in Jamnagar, India, over the weekend of March 1.
Eyes around the world became glued to the party after a video of Rihanna performing at one of the events went viral. The guest list included some of the world's most wealthy and powerful people, including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Ivanka Trump.
The celebrations took place at the Ambani family's compound, which sits on 750 acres of property, according to Vogue.
Vogue reported that Anant Ambani's mother, Nita Mukesh Ambani, and designer Manish Malhotra planned the events, even constructing custom venues for some of the celebrations.
For instance, they built a glass castle designed to look like something you'd see at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for the first night's events, as Merchant loved to visit the Palm House when she lived in New York, Vogue reported. They also built a "Mela Rouge"-themed carnival for the second evening's festivities, complete with functioning rides, according to the outlet.
Merchant told Vogue that she and Ambani decided not to see any of the venues before the celebrations, as they wanted to be surprised by some elements of the events.
"I cannot emphasize enough that no one else could have created something like this — both in scale and on such a tight timeframe," Merchant said of her future mother-in-law and Malhotra's planning.
Ambani also praised his mother's efforts in planning the event during the celebrations as a video from Business Today shows, though he did not mention Malhotra.
"All this is created by my mother and no one else, and my mother has gone all out for the last four months," he said. "She's worked for, I think, 18, 19 hours a day, and I'm extremely grateful to Mama. Thank you so much."