What the UAE has in spades when it comes to throwing elaborate wedding bashes: Infrastructure, luxury venues and a solid understanding of Indian marriage traditions. What the UAE doesn’t have?
Paparazzi.
The lack of nosey photographers – and with it, a sense of privacy and security – is what keeps Bollywood’s biggest stars coming back for their private family events. In the last year, at least two major weddings have taken place in the Emirates, both celebrations for scions of the Kapoor family. Aashita Relan, a restaurateur, married filmmaker and entrepreneur Akshay Marwah in February 2017 with a lavish three-day event at Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace. A year later, Akshay’s brother Mohit married Antara Motiwala in a similarly star-studded celebration at the Waldorf Astoria in Ras Al Khaimah.
Not only were the events in the UAE, but the brains behind the incredible decor at the events are locally based planners Red Velvet and Fete Events respectively. One thing both events had in common? An extremely short deadline; each decorator had just a matter of weeks to put together multi-day, multi-event weddings for some of the world’s most well-travelled and stylish people. No pressure!
Red Velvet’s Jharna Kalwani and Harsha Khubchandani had to accommodate guests in not one hotel, but four – booking party-loving younger members of the family into the St Regis Corniche, close family members and elders to Emirates Palace and artists and support staff across two other locations in the capital.
If it’s wedding inspiration you’re looking for, these pages have that in spades – both brides, say the planners, were fully involved in the preparations, and also open to hearing suggestions and recommendations – and letting the decorator run with an idea, if need be. Luckily for the couples, their guests happen to be major Bollywood stars, so booking a performer wasn’t actually necessary – the traditional family skits must have been on another level, as the pictures on the opposite page show. Nonetheless, musicians and performers are needed at any event – for this crowd, you’d better book the best. Red Velvet’s Jharna locked in Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, who played a three-hour set, going way beyond his usual 90 minutes to regale some of India’s VVIPs, which are said to have included former heads of state.
The Abu Dhabi event started with an intimate dinner for family and close friends at the St Regis Abu Dhabi, followed by the mehendi the next day at the Emirates Palace Hotel ballroom. French musical trio Paris House Addict performed. The party carried on with a cocktail and sangeet with a ‘majestic’ theme. Mohit, cousins Sonam and Rhea Kapoor and hotelier Samyukta Nair took to the stage to perform. Needless to say, the next day saw a very different kind of event – a hangover brunch ahead of the main ceremony, serving up cheese dosas, enchiladas, sushi, dimsum and burgers; the catering for the entire event was carried out by chefs brought over from India and given access to the Emirates Palace kitchens.
The culmination of the celebrations, the wedding ceremony, saw the bride in a classic red-and-gold Sabyasachi lehenga for the special occasion with a royal theme. Held on the Emirates Palace terrace, the decor was complete with zardozi velvet drapes, chandeliers and a flower mandap.
For this year’s Ras Al Khaimah event, Sahiba Narang and Mallika Singh of Fete Events created a wonderland of florals with a modern mandap topped with pink blooms, and a tropical garden teeming with flamingo motifs for the Latin American-themed mehendi.
Also read: Want to get married in the UAE? Here’s the legal stuff
Also read: Top ways to avoid wedding-planning stress
There’s no doubt the UAE’s hotels and planners can pull off top-notch nuptials – now the question is, which of Bollywood’s love birds will be the next to wed in the Emirates?
