Inside India’s Luxury $100 billion Wedding Machine and the Craft of Celebration
The Indian wedding industry is estimated at more than $100 billion, with several celebrations ranked among the most expensive ever. Most notably, Anant Ambani’s wedding to Radhika Merchant—son of prominent Indian businesswoman, philanthropist, and art patron Nita Ambani—reportedly cost around $600 million. It has become synonymous with scale, surpassing even European royal weddings, while also serving as a signal of what an Indian wedding can become.
The Ambani family have become reference points for Indian high society not only because of wealth, but because they transform private celebration into global cultural spectacle. Their weddings and pre-wedding events are no longer just family milestones, they are curated productions where India is presented through scale, symbolism, craftsmanship, and international visibility.
For brands, the opportunity is undeniable: entry into a multi-consumer ecosystem spanning generations, geographies, and categories, all activated within a condensed timeline.
Yet despite appearing as one event, the Indian wedding is anything but simple. It is shaped by regional, religious, and diasporic differences. So, how can brands navigate that complexity without flattening its meaning or reducing it to surface-level aesthetics?
Al Dente spoke to recently-married couples, wedding attendees, and South Asian industry insiders and luxury experts based in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, and, of course, India. Across conversations and research, one idea consistently emerged: the way in is not through spectacle, but through culture.
Getting to Know the Indian Wedding, Intimately
Behind the months-long preparation exist a challenge: a knowledge and trust gap. For many families, in and outside India, navigating venues and vendors is far from straightforward. As a result, decision-making relies less on marketing and more on personal & social networks, reputation, and word-of-mouth.
Research supports this. According to Grand View Research, 51% of couples rely heavily on word-of-mouth recommendations when selecting vendors, while only 30% turn to online platforms (though some still use social media cues such as tagged posts or hashtags as a starting point, one of our sources shared). What emerges is a market driven not by visibility, but by credibility.
Destination weddings continue to define the industry’s expansion. Skift Research estimates that Indian destination weddings alone represent a $1.9 billion market. While Rajasthan remains a benchmark, with its forts and palaces accommodating both large and intimate celebrations, destinations such as Italy, Mexico, and Southeast Asia (such as Thailand and the Philippines) are increasingly in demand, particularly among the diaspora.
Despite modern tendencies, tradition remains central. One bride shared, “In my experience attending weddings across cultures and continents, I’ve found that many brides seeking to add meaning to their celebrations focus on heirlooms and heritage. For me, that meant highlighting both our traditions through outfits, decor, and food. I wanted our guests to be fully immersed in our world.”
One bride described how her choices moved between contemporary designers and deeply personal references, buying her bandhani sari from the same shop in Mumbai where her mother bought her trousseau, and wearing her mother’s jewellery on the day itself.
Emotion plays a defining role in categories like jewellery, where purchasing is less transactional and more symbolic. Brands that center family, relationships, and continuity—often through mother-daughter narratives—tend to resonate strongly. As highlighted by our sources, Indian players like Tanishq have mastered this approach, positioning jewellery not as an accessory but as an emotional marker tied to key life moments. This kind of framing drives significantly higher spending, particularly around weddings, where purchases can reach two to three times the average, motivated as much by sentiment as by status.
For European brands, the opportunity lies less in differentiation and more in recognizing shared similarities and values. There is a natural alignment between India and Europe around a deep appreciation for craft, heritage, and the grand significance of milestone events like weddings. Rather than introducing a new kind of fantasy or craft, European players can lean into shared values, bringing their artisanal heritage and emotional depth into conversation alongside locally rooted meanings, with a focus on quality and timelessness.
Across interviews, it is clear: more than a celebration, the goal is to create an atmosphere that feels rooted, personal, and sacred, in a way that feels natural.
Art As The Ultimate Luxury Entry Point
Celebrities do shape the visual language of Indian weddings. While red has long been the traditional bridal color, Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma’s 2017 wedding helped popularize softer pastel palettes. More recently, a return to deeper reds, seen in weddings like those of Rashmika and Vijay, and Priyanka Chopra, signals how trends circulate and re-enter the mainstream.
But beyond these shifts, something deeper is at play. As one bride explains: “A wedding is a manifestation of who you are as a couple. It is an exercise in storytelling and in curation.”
This is where a more meaningful point of connection and similarity emerges: art.
The Indian wedding is built through craft, embroidery, jewellery-making, textiles, performance. This is also where India and Europe find alignment, in their shared reverence for craftsmanship and a deep commitment to quality.
During the opening of the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre in Paris, K. Nandini Singla, Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, noted that France and India share a similar fundamental belief: that culture and art are sacred, bringing color, joy, and meaning to life. If there’s a way for brands to avoid cliché and truly connect with this market, perhaps it is through that shared understanding.
There is a growing relationship between luxury, art and craft, and Indian culture, visible through collaborations where brands such as Dior and Piaget work with Indian artists like Rithika Merchant, as well as through engagement with cultural platforms such as the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, and art fairs like Asia NOW in Paris. Recently, at the Venice Biennale, sponsored by Bulgari, the Ambani family has also hosted a much-talked about dinner that highlighted the relationship between Italy and India. Art spaces, often frequented by culturally-engaged and globally-connected Indian audiences, signal a more meaningful way of engaging with Indian narratives, one that moves toward deeper cultural participation.
Increasingly, this dialogue is unfolding across platforms and through collaborations between artists and luxury houses. In this context, cultural capital becomes the timeless signifier of luxury. When brands align with art and cultural institutions, they demonstrate a deeper respect for its core built on authenticity, cultural investment, and elevated dialogue. For Al Dente, this is about sharpening the focus on cultural alignment and context-driven engagement. Cultural capital here is built not through general associations of culture, but through a clear understanding of craft, rituals, and even dynamics of status that shape key moments of Indian weddings.
This is how we can help brands connect meaningfully with insiders: by translating cultural proximity into strategic access. Rather than approaching Indian weddings spectacles, we help brands enter them through context, relationships, and relevance, ensuring their presence is not just visible, but embedded within the craft and cultural logic of the moment. This also includes close consultation with the right artists, creatives, and cultural practitioners, as well as curating and sharing the right references that genuinely speak to Indian audiences and sensibilities.
Our Takeaway
The Indian wedding may be a billion-dollar industry, but its value cannot be translated through size alone. It is a universe that is vast, diverse, ever-changing, and also grounded in something sacred. For brands, the challenge is not access, but the level of respect in their approach. Avoiding cliché means moving beyond spectacle and towards a deeper understanding of shared values such as craft, culture, and art. Because the real opportunity is not in recreating what an Indian wedding looks like, but in engaging with what Indian culture stands for. To discover how your brand can translate these values into a resonant, intentional strategy, reach out to us at: contact@aldenteparis.com.
