PRIYANKA & NICK’S ROYAL WEDDING
3-day ceremony was said to rival grandness of wedding of actress’s best pal Meghan Markle
PRIYANKA Chopra and Nick Jonas’s three-day wedding came to a spectacular climax on Sunday with a Hindu ceremony in a palace, featuring a heavily decorated elephant.
The actress, with her family, arriving at Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, India, on Sunday.
The Bollywood star, 36, was reportedly wearing an outfit by the highly regarded designer Sabyasachi Mukherji, as she waited on the front steps of the spectacular building, which is one of the world’s largest private residences.
Jonas had promised to make a spectacular entrance so it’s likely the elephant was being readied to carry him to the ceremony.
The couple exchanged vows in a Christian ceremony on Saturday, wearing custom-made Ralph Lauren clothes, and later shared pictures on their social media of a pre-wedding ritual, the mehendi ceremony, which involves applying henna on the bride’s hands as a good omen.
“One of the most special things that our relationship has given us is a merging of families who love and respect each others’ faiths and cultures. And so planning our wedding with an amalgamation of both was so so amazing,” Chopra wrote on her Instagram account.
The pictures showed the couple laughing and surrounded by family and friends, as an artisan applied henna on Chopra’s palms.
At another pre-wedding function, guests and the bride and groom danced to Bollywood songs, including some of Chopra’s biggest hits.
Celebrities had arrived to watch the nuptials, and on Saturday actress Elizabeth Chambers was seen arriving at Jodhpur airport with her four-year-old daughter Harper for the nuptials of her pals.
The wife of Armie Hammer’s arrival comes hot on the heels of invitees making the most of their time on social media to showcase the glamorous lead-up to the weekend of ceremonies, as mobile phones and cameras are strictly prohibited inside the luxurious Umaid Bhawan Palace.
Although it is normally the bride that makes a show-stopping entrance, Jonas admitted during an interview with Vogue that he would be following Indian custom and arriving on horseback “dressed like a king”, wearing a turban and holding a sword.
During the interview, Chopra suddenly thought to check that her fiancé was comfortable riding horses, but he was quick to reassure her that he couldn’t wait to make his grand arrival.
The Hindu marriage was sealed with a ceremony called “saath phere”, in which the bride and groom walk around a fire seven times to represent seven marital vows.
One of the most intimate touches was that the Christian ceremony was to be taken by Jonas’s pastor father Paul.
Chopra and 26-year-old Jonas were engaged earlier this year after a whirlwind courtship that began at an Oscars after-party last year.
Chopra, who headlined three seasons of the ABC crime drama Quantico, is one of Bollywood’s biggest female leads with acting credits in several big-ticket films.
Jonas and his brothers Kevin and Joe formed a pop-rock band, The Jonas Brothers, in 2005 and soared to fame as members of Disney’s stable of teenage stars. The band split up in 2013.
Chopra’s best friend, Megan Markle chose not to travel to India due to her pregnancy.
The pair have been friends since January 2016 when they met at the Elle Women in Television event and hit it off from there.
“Priyanka is unbelievable,” Markle told the Press Trust Of India in July.
“She’s become a really good friend. ELLE in the US hosted a dinner celebrating Women in TV, and we met that night.”
Chopra’s parents, father Ashok and mother Madhu, were both physicians in the Indian Army. Chopra’s father passed away in 2013.
Meanwhile, Denise Jonas, Jonas’s mother, gifted her daughter-in-law with a pair of earrings from French luxury jeweller Van Cleef & Arpels, which cost $79,500, according to The Bombay Times.