The wedding industry in the United States is valued at $70 billion, making it the most expensive wedding market in the world. However, you may be surprised to learn that there are no United States weddings on this list. This is because other high-valued wedding industries are top-heavy, servicing mostly celebrities and royalty. For that reason, almost all the most expensive weddings in the world are from India and England, with one more from Dubai.
Who were the lucky couples and what drove up the price of their ceremonies to the hundreds of millions of dollars? Keep reading to learn more in our list of the 8 most expensive weddings.
- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
- Rajeev Reddy and Brahmani Janardhana Reddy
- Vanisha Mittal and Amit Bhatia
- Gulraj Behl and Shristi Mittal
- Sushanto Roy and Seemanto Roy
- Anand Piramal and Isha Ambani
- Prince Charles and Lady Diana
- Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and Sheikha Salama bin Hamdan Al Nahyan
Country: England
Year: 2018
photo source: Wikimedia Commons
Tied for the most recent wedding on this list is the 2018 wedding ceremony of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Their May 19 ceremony cost $45,800,000, which included lavish wedding and engagement rings crafted by Cleave and Company, the royal court jewelers. They were all made from three venerated diamonds, one from the mines at Botswana and two more from the private collection of Princess Diana. Markle’s band was yellow gold and Harry’s was platinum.
The wedding at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle was highly televised, including the sermon by the Reverend Michael Bruce Curry.
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The wedding was organized partly as a tribute to the beloved Princess Diana (see later on this list), not just by way of the rings. All three of the Spencer siblings – Baroness Jane Fellowes, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, and Earl Spencer – were in attendance as Harry and Meghan tied the knot.
Country: India
Year: 2016
photo source: India
The mining mogul Gali Janardhan Reddy married his only daughter off to Rajeev Reddy, the son of another high-powered businessman. The ceremony took place in India on the venerated Bangalore Palace grounds. Over 50,000 guests attended this historic ceremony, which cost nearly $67,000,000 in 2016.
Part of this budget was used to send every guest an invite on a mini-LCD screen, which in true Bollywood fashion played the invite in the form of a choreographed song performed by the Reddy family. Enclosed was a Ganesha figure molded from silver.
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This wedding took place during a period of financial unrest in India, when the government dealt with inflation by demonetizing 80% of its circulating currency. Despite these circumstances, Reddy couldn’t be swayed from sending his daughter off with one of the most expensive ceremonies of all time. She came wearing a Kanjeevaram sari that cost $2.3 million by itself. But it was only the frame for the jewels adorning her beautiful self, which were worth $12 million.
Country: France
Year: 2004
photo source: India Times
The Indian wedding industry is valued at over $50 billion, so you better believe that the rest of this list will be full of royalty and billionaire children from India, also known locally as “Bhārat.” But you may be surprised to learn that the steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal alone is responsible for two weddings on this list. The first is the wedding of his daughter, Vanisha Mittal, to Amit Bhatia.
The ceremony cost $55,000,000 in 2004, the equivalent of over $81,000,000 in 2022. The Palace of Versailles in France held the lavish ceremony, which saw many Bollywood superstars in attendance. These included Akshay Kumar, Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Rani Mukherjee, and Saif Ali Khan.
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The wedding was decorated by master craftsmen, who also created a mandap (a temporary wooden decorative structure erected for Hindi weddings) that floated in a pond in Vaux le Vicomte. The ceremony recruited florists from Holland, choreography from Farah Khan, and finery by Tarun Tahiliani and Suneet Verma. Kylie Minogue even gave a private performance.
Country: Spain
Year: 2013
photo source: Getty Images
Our list of Indian tycoons brings us to the wedding of Gulraj Behl to Shristi Mittal, the niece of the billionaire steel tycoon, Lakshmi Mittal. Unlike many of the most expensive weddings of all time, this one only had 500 guests in attendance, making it the most expensive per person of any ceremony ever, costing $73,520,000, reportedly, in 2013.
The ceremony in Spain featured over 200 chefs and butlers flown from India and around Asia to serve the event. It featured food conceived by the Michelin-starred chef, Sergi Arola, who also oversaw the creation of a six-tier cake, cut while helicopters flew overhead to film the event.
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Every guest in attendance was required to sign a confidentiality agreement to not disclose any details about the ceremony. We’ve told you about all we know!
Country: India
Year: 2004
photo source: India Times
The double wedding of two sons of Subrata Roy, the magnate responsible for Sahara India Pariwar, is one of the most expensive ever held. The two ceremonies for Sushanto and Seemanto Roy cost around $75,000,000 in 2004, which is around $110,000,000 in 2022 money.
This money included every guest being flown in on their own private jets, and over 100 lavish cuisines cooked and served to the over 11,000 people in attendance.
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The money wasn’t just for the lavish ceremonies and its luxurious guests. It also included the separate marriage ceremonies for 101 underprivileged girls, funded by the event, and food for over 150,000 homeless people in the vicinity.
Country: India and Italy
Year: 2018
photo source: India Today
Isha Ambani was known as the daughter of the richest businessman in India. So when she got married in 2018 to Anand Piramal, another billionaire’s child, everyone knew it was going to be intense. The $100,000,000 ceremony took place in several gorgeous locations, include the historic capital of Mewar in India, now Udaipur, Mumbai, and the luxurious Lake Como in Italy.
Ambani and Piramal started dating in 2016 after being childhood friends due to their families’ mutual connections. The ceremony itself was held at Antilia, which is the Ambani home in Mumbai, India (it’s a 27-story luxury skyscraper).
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The Wedding of Piramal and Ambani is one of the most well-attended wedding events in modern history. It saw such diverse faces as stars Priyanka Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan, Hillary Clinton and Nick Jonas, Pranab Mukherjee, the former president of India, and even Beyonce, though she was hired for the event to give a private performance to the bride and groom.
Country: England
Year: 1981
photo source: Flickr
By far the most expensive wedding ever conducted in an English-speaking country, the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer cost $48,000,000 in 1981. This means that in 2022, this ceremony, widely considered the fairytale event of the decade, would have cost over $147,000,000.
750 million people watched this wedding on television while 3,500 people saw Charles and Di tie the knot in person. The wedding took place at the Church of England, officiated by the then-Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie. The United Kingdom declared their wedding day a national holiday, which means that this wedding has cost billions over the years, in a sense, in closed businesses, celebrations, and days off.
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Lady Diana might be on your mind right now because of the 2021 film starring Kristen Stewart, Spencer, making the rounds at the 2022 awards season. Diana is unforgettable on the TV screens of the world in her wedding dress, which sported a train 25 feet long and over 10,000 genuine pearls. Hopefully, she will prove just as unforgettable on movie screens.
Country: United Arab Emirates
Year: 1981
photo source: Pinterest
The most expensive wedding was that of Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and Sheikha Salama bin Hamdan Al Nahyan. It’s difficult to even estimate the full cost of their extravagant ceremony, which cost over $100,000,000 even back in 1981. Our best estimate of what this wedding would cost in 2022 is well over $300,000,000, making it the most expensive wedding of all time.
The Al Nahyan family is rumored to be worth more than $150 billion so it should be no surprise that the marriage of their son, the prince of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, to the Princess Salama cost so much.
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Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed is eclectic in his hobbies and education. At the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he trained in tactical flying, paratrooping, and as a helicopter pilot. He has been an officer in the elite security force of the United Arab Emirates and in his free time practices his father’s favorite hobbies – falconry and hunting.
The Takeaway
The world’s most expensive weddings defy imagination, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent on decadent food, celebrity guests, and the most lavish invites that money can buy. You may not be able to attend these weddings, but at least you can watch them when they take over the TVs of the world.
