Ever wonder what the title of the most expensive wedding in history involves? Well in 2004, London’s wealthiest man, tycoon Lakshmi Mittal threw his daughter one of the most lavish affairs the world has ever seen.
Vanisha Mittal, 23 at the time, exchanged wedding rings with London based banker Amit Bhatia, then 25, during June of 2004 in a traditional Indian ceremony that lasted five days. The wedding invitations for which, were 20 pages worth of poetry, site descriptions, and festival details delivered in individual silver boxes.
1,000 guests were flown on 12 jets, rented by Mittal, from India to Paris, where the festivities took place. The guests stayed at the Hotel le Grand Intercontinental, where all 600 rooms were booked for the occasion; accommodations alone cost about $2 million.
Amenities set up for the stay included a 24 hour snack bar, the entire first floor was converted into a beauty salon with hairdressers and makeup artists, three exclusive television channels broadcasting wedding preparations, movies, and news were set up, a team of 38 chefs prepared over 100 types of dishes, and luxury cars complete with bars were at the disposal of the guests for travel within Paris.
As if all that opulence wasn’t already enough, other ceremonies took place at the palace of Versailles, the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte in Paris’s Jardin des Tuileries, and a fireworks display at the Eiffel Tower.
The actual entertainment for the occasion were big names in pop music and Bollywood, including Aishwarya Raj, Akshay Kumar and Kylie Minogue, who was reportedly paid over $500,000 for a 30 minute music set. And although journalists were banned from covering the affair, the father of the bride reportedly hired a famous Bollywood director to document the almost week long party.
The couple originally met in college and dated for a year and a half before Bhatia presented Mittal with an engagement ring.
They say that the creation of important memories is priceless, but these came in at $78 million dollars. This decadent affair beat out Crown Prince Filipe of Spain’s wedding, which came in at $35 million, for the most expensive wedding the world has ever seen.