Jammin' in Jamnagar: Business, tech elite to descend for the wedding of Anant Ambani & Radhika Merchant

Mumbai: It's going to be one of India's biggest weddings. Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani, will wed Radhika Merchant, the daughter of industrialist Viren Merchant, on July 12 in Mumbai.

The list of international guests expected to attend the pre-wedding celebrations in Jamnagar in early March reads like a veritable who's who of the global business elite. It includes Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Blackstone chairman Stephen Schwarzman, Disney CEO Bob Iger, Ivanka Trump, Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick, Bank of America chairman Brian Thomas Moynihan, Qatar Premier Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, Adnoc CEO Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, EL Rothschild chair Lynn Forester de Rothschild, the king and queen of Bhutan, tech investor Yuri Milner and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, among others.

The bride and groom recently celebrated their Lagan Lakhvanu. The auspicious ritual, which includes written invitations offered first to the Gods and then to close family, took place on February 16 at Jamnagar, Gujarat, at the Ambani family estate. During the ceremony, bride-to-be Radhika donned a custom-made lehenga by Anamika Khanna.

The two were engaged at the Shrinathji temple in Rajasthan's Nathdwara in 2022, followed by a ceremony in 2023 at Antilia, the multi-storeyed Ambani residence on Mumbai's Altamount Road. The pre-wedding festivities will reportedly be hosted from March 1-3 at the sprawling Reliance Greens complex in Jamnagar, said to have more than 10 million trees and Asia's largest mango orchard. The groom reportedly nurtured this estate into a haven for rescued animals and so the venue has a special place in his heart.

Others expected to attend include Lupa Systems CEO James Murdoch, Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio, Hillhouse Capital founder Zhang Lei, BP chief executive Murray Auchincloss, Exor CEO John Elkann, former Cisco chairman John Chambers, Brookfield Asset Management CEO Bruce Flatt, and Ajit Jain, vice chairman of insurance operations, Berkshire Hathaway.