Their Big Fat Indian Weddings
Exotic locations, designer clothes, festivities spread over several days and the who’s who in attendance... Can you expect any less when Deepika weds Ranveer, PC marries Nick Jonas and the daughter of the richest Indian ties the knot?
Nothing distracted, amused and, after a point, exhausted India more than the recent spate of celebrity weddings. Relationship goals were set; sartorial trends started; candid poses struck to create viral photos; and wedding budgets hit an all-time high.
Each wedding spawned its own hashtag. Sonam Kapoor’s marriage to her businessman beau Anand Ahuja in May came with #SonamKiShaadi and #EverydayPhenomenal. Ahuja quoted a poem from Emily Dickinson and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi on Instagram to explain why the duo opted for the latter moniker. Actors Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh went for the more traditional #DeepVeer for their Lake Como wedding in November. It would gain traction on social media and end up number eight in Twitter’s top 10 “Influential moments” in India in 2018. Tourism in Italy can expect a further boost and Sabyasachi can expect more brides to queue up.
#DeepVeer weren’t even done with all their functions when #Nickyanka or #PriNick—Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra—tied the knot in early December. The couple had both a Christian and an Indian wedding in Jodhpur with the Chopras having to keep up with the Jonases in a sangeet face-off. #Nickyanka wasn’t even the big fat Rajasthan-set wedding of the year. That honour went to Isha Ambani and Anand Piramal who got pretty much the entire Bollywood cast and two US Democratic presidential candidates and senators to dance at their celebration in Udaipur. Compared to the wedding festivities, the hashtag was rather modest #IshaAmbaniWedding. Such was the deluge that Saina Nehwal’s marriage to player and training partner Parupalli Kashyap in Hyderabad went almost unnoticed.
Who emerged the winner by the end of it all? The Ambanis flew down Beyonce for a private concert while #Nickyanka got the honour of being blessed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Let’s call it a tie.