Like every other middle-class Indian, I spent the first weekend of March hooked to my phone, receiving minute-by-minute updates from Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s pre-wedding celebrations. Every time I opened Instagram, I was instantly to Jamnagar and became a voyeur in the world of Ambanis and their grand celebrations.
It was the true definition of a big fat Indian wedding. In India, a wedding is many things — a sacred institution, a celebration of love, and a bottomless pit of financial despair for the average Indian.
The three days of Anant and Radhika’s pre-wedding festivities had enough branded outfits to organise a desi Met Gala, enough diamond jewellery to blind us and enough food to feed a small nation.
I’m all for celebrating love in style. But when ‘style’ starts looking like the GDP of a small country, it makes me want to take a step back and wonder what happened to the simple shaadis of our parents’ and grandparents’ generation.
The Ambani wedding extravaganza is just the tip of the iceberg. However, it sets a precedent. A shimmering, diamond-encrusted precedent, that screams — ‘The bigger the better! The more extravagant, the more respect you command!’ And that is a dangerous game.
Why? Because the Ambanis of the world can afford such celebrations. They can have mandaps flown in from Europe, flowers from Italy and cater their receptions with dishes farmed on the moon. But for the average middle-class Indian, such grandeur is a recipe for financial disaster. It’s like trying to put on a Marvel movie with a budget meant for a student film.
The pressure to ‘keep up with the Ambanis’ is real. People take loans and dip into their retirement funds to ensure their children’s weddings are nothing short of a Bollywood award show. All this for what? Bragging rights? A fleeting moment of societal validation that evaporates faster than the mehendi on your hand?
A wedding should be a celebration of love, family, and the beginning of a new chapter in life. It shouldn’t be a competition to see who can throw the most lavish party, who can invite the most celebrities, or who can wear the most obscenely expensive lehenga that can put even the most ornate Met Gala outfits to shame.
After all, the success of a wedding and marriage can never be determined by how many dishes you had on the menu or how much you spent trying to look perfect for the world.
Instead, weddings should focus on what truly matters — blessings from loved ones, heartfelt vows, and a manageable number of dishes without raiding the pantry of a Michelin-starred restaurant.
At the end of the day, the only thing that should be grand about your wedding is the love you share, not the size of your bank account.
