It’s said that the average wedding in the United States costs around 30 thousand dollars. That’s one heck of a wedding. But while everyone shakes their head and thinks that they’ll never spend that much on a wedding, you know different, don’t you?
Indeed, weddings are a time of celebration. So it makes sense that if you really have the money to do so that you go all out. Some people come from wealthy families where not showing a luxury wedding would be like declaring “we’re broke!” to the entire world. Still, a lot more people feel that a wedding should be small and simple.
Which side wins? Well, since weddings are personal it’s pretty hard to say. We decided to skip the debate entirely and just give you 7 of the world’s most expensive weddings — are you ready for this?
1. Vanisha Mittal to Amit Bhatia
Date: November 18th, 2004
Cost: $78 million
When you’re the daughter of a billionaire, it stands to reason that you’re going to have a pretty big wedding. However, no one expected it to get this big! Vanisha Mittal married Amit Bhatia, an investment banker. The new Mrs. Bhatia is the daughter of Lakshmi Mittal, one of India’s richest businesspeople.
What added to the massive wedding cost are the location as well as the sheer number of guests. The couple was wed at Vaux le Victome, which is a centuries-old chateau in France. The wedding wasn’t just a day’s celebration either. It actually went on for five days straight, and no expense was spared on the details. The invitations were sent out in a 20 page silver book — to over 1000 guests. When you do the math, that’s expensive on its own. However, for those 1000 guests there were also over 100 dishes prepared by a legendary chef in Calcutta. The wine tab was also expensive at over 1.5 million dollars.
Since this is the world’s most expensive wedding, you can count on the fact that it was picked up by global media circles. Forbes has honored it as one of the most expensive weddings, and it even is recorded down in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most expensive wedding ever. The bride and groom are still together, thankfully.
2. Aleksandra Kokotovic to Andrei Melnichenko
Date: September 3, 2005
Cost: $30 million
What do you get when you cross a Russian billionaire and businessman with a stunning model? You get Andrei Melnichenko and Aleksandra Kokotovic. The happy couple is still married to this day, and many people remember their wedding. As they well should, for $30 million dollars! The wedding was done at Cote d’Azur, France. France seems to be a pretty popular choice for weddings, which makes sense. The views in France just make it worth checking out on that merit alone, but there’s a certain type of luxury from just being able to say that you’re going to fly to a completely different country to have your wedding.
What could make this wedding more special? Well, how about the fact that Christina Aguilera and Whitney Houston were both flown in to give performances, and they were paid 3.6 million dollars each to perform! Wow, what a payday!
3. Priya Sachdev to Vikram Chatwal
Date: February 18th, 2006
Cost: $20 million
Priya Sachdev is a beautiful actress that is well known in India’s “Bollywood” scene. Her wedding is also famous because of the cost — $20 million dollars, and over 600 guests. Most of us have a pretty small wedding and when we think “big”, we think maybe a 100 people, or 150 people. No, they really went all out. She married Vikram Chatwal, who is the son of a hotelier that made his mark in New York in a big way.
The wedding actually stretched for over 10 days, moving across three Indian cities (Mumbai, Udaipur, and Delhi).
Famous guests included Bill Clinton, Naomi Campbell, and even P. Diddy — but that’s not a shock, it seems that P. Diddy will show up anywhere he’s invited!
4. Colleen McLaughlin to Wayne Rooney
Date: June 12, 2008
Cost: $15 million
Wayne Rooney is a fierce football star — that’s European football for you US types, which means that yes, he’s famous for tossing around a round white ball with his feet. Still, he is one of the most recognized faces of Manchester United, which is definitely a good thing. Colleen McLaughlin is a television presenter that definitely got herself an amazing groom. The wedding is estimated anywhere between 10 and 15 million. Before you feel bad for the newlyweds, don’t forget that Britain’s OK! Magazine subsidized 5 million of that amount through buying exclusive content that they knew the public would want to see.
What added to the expense is definitely the four day celebration on a yacht, with 64 guests flown in. Of course, they weren’t just flown in on regular airlines — oh no, they were floated in from private jets, of course! There’s nothing like a Gulfstream, you know.
5. Delphine Arnault to Alessandro Vallarino Gancia
Date: September 24, 2005
Cost: $7 million+
So, what made this wedding so expensive between Delphine Arnault, daughter of the famous French businessman Bernard Arnault, and Alessandro Vallarino Gancia, one of the key players in the Gancia wine dynasty? One, the location. Like many other famous types, they chose to have their wedding in France. That added a hefty sum to the wedding tab. On top of that, the bride’s dress was designed by John Galliano, which means that it’s custom made and definitely of quality.
There were 5,000 white roses at the wedding venue, which is also expensive. White roses don’t just fall from the sky, you know!
There were plenty of amazing wedding gusts, such as Elizabeth Hurley and even Karl Lagerfeld.
6. Liza Minnelli to David Gest
Date: March 16, 2002
Cost: $3.5 million
By the time you work your way down this list, you’re thinking to yourself, “Wow, only $3.5 million dollars? How cheap!”
That’s because we hit you with so many over the top, elegant affairs. This is one that’s a big stranger.
Liza Minnelli married David Gest. As you can see from the picture, they’re a bit of an odd couple that looks more like brother and sister than husband and wife. There were over 850 people that turned out for this wedding, including Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, and even Natalie Cole (yes, Nat King Cole’s daughter!). It is estimated that nearly 3/4 of a million dollars was spent on the flowers, and there were multiple cakes — each 6 feet tall and 12 tiers high. That’s a lot of cake, so we hope you brought a baggie for leftovers!
7. Melania Knauss to Donald Trump
Date: January 22, 2005
Cost: $1 million
Like most articles on luxury, you really can’t close without paying your respects to the Don …err, we mean, to the Donald. Trump, that is. Now, this is an interesting thing: Donald Trump is also a billionaire, but he didn’t spend as much money as the other people on the list. If he had wanted to out-do Vanisha Mittal, he very well could have. Maybe he felt that since his wealth is so famous, he didn’t really need to go all out?
Still, what was done was elegant enough. You see, the bride’s dress was Dior, custom made — and $200,000 dollars besides. It had a 13-foot train as well as over 1500 rhinestones and pearls. The dress also weighed 60 lbs — good thing Ms. Knauss is a fit woman!
The happy ending? Mr. and Mrs. Trump are actually still together, and reports from friends say that they are very happy people together. They also have a son now, which means that they should be together for a while if everything is fine — raising a child can be pretty stressful, but Donald already has four adult children — he should be just fine!
There were also performances done by Billy Joel and Tony Bennett. The famous guest list was kept short, consisting of the Clintons, Shaq, and Rudy Giuliani, among others.
Now, we gave you 7 of the world’s most expensive weddings. Since new weddings happen all of the time, it’s highly possible that we left off a few that you love, or that we didn’t even claim the most expensive. We wanted to give you the crazy and the funny, the over the top and the downright silly — as well as the traditionally elegant. So if your favorite didn’t show up, it’s probably because it’s been covered to death a thousand times in a thousand other places. Hey, we like to keep it fresh sometimes! Still, you’re more than welcome to sound off in the comments — we would love to hear from you!