Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor’s upcoming wedding has occupied the news cycle with their changing wedding dates, the wedding trousseau arriving in a local cab, or frantic paparazzi coverage of the couple’s close friends and family’s each and every single activity.
A big celebrity wedding like this is enough to give people something to obsess over as the world literally burns around them. As we wait for the couple to tie the knot and quell the Internet’s growing disquiet over being excluded from the wedding planning process by sharing some well-shot candids from the ceremony, let’s take a walk down memory lane and revisit some other celebrity weddings that caused a big stir.
When Beyoncé (and the whole film industry) performed at Isha Ambani’s Wedding
Isha Ambani and Anand Piramal’s pre-wedding ceremony featured a private concert by Beyoncé, because why would it not? The singer flew down to Udaipur and performed some of her biggest hits, including ‘Crazy In Love’, and ‘Perfect’, while wearing an Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla creation. Queen Bey, however, wasn’t the only star performer at the business tycoon’s daughter’s wedding. Half of Bollywood performed too, including Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Gauri Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, and Katrina Kaif. Other attendees included the rest of Bollywood and Hillary Clinton.
When Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai’s Wedding invitations left many big names in the industry upset
Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai’s decision to only invite a select few to their intimate, yet grand enough for Karan Johar to be brought on as a choreographer, wedding ceremony didn’t sit well with a lot of industry folks. In an appearance on Koffee With Karan, Bachchan revealed that their decision to not hold a big wedding ceremony with all their Bollywood friends was because of his ailing grandmother. He confirmed that veteran actor Shatrugan Sinha didn’t like the mass wedding announcement and returned the wedding card miffed. There were talks of other big upsets, like Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Rani Mukherji, and Bachchan’s childhood friend Farhan Akhtar, but nothing was confirmed and it has become the stuff murky Bollywood subreddits are famous for.
When Sean Parker and Alexandra Lenas’ Lord Of The Rings inspired wedding landed them in hot water with a local conservation group
Facebook billionaire Sean Parker (who Justin Timberlake played in the movie The Social Network), found himself at the receiving end of a hefty $2.5 million fine after he held a Lord Of The Rings-inspired wedding ceremony in a forest in Big Sur, California. Parker, who got married to singer-songwriter Alexandra Lenas, built a cottage, fake ruins, waterfalls, staircases, and a huge dance floor in an ecologically sensitive area near ancient redwoods and a stream with endangered steelhead trout. Parker claimed that the damage was severely misreported and caused them a lot of emotional distress (and also, apparently, being spat on by environmentalists when they stepped out of their house).
When Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner got married in a secret ceremony in Las Vegas and Diplo live-streamed it for the world
Before their incredibly romantic wedding in France, Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner got married in an impromptu ceremony in Vegas. The wedding ceremony would have remained a secret had it not been for Diplo who shared clips from the ceremony on his Instagram Stories from the venue. Thankfully, the couple had no hard feelings about the wedding reveal, even though Jonas and the DJ continued their fake feud over it for months to come.
When Sarah Jessica Parker wore a black wedding gown for her surprise wedding to Matthew Broderick
Back in 1997, Sex and The City star Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick sprung a surprise wedding on their 100 guests, who thought that they were gathering for a fancy dinner party. Turns out, that wasn’t the only shocker of the night. Parker turned up at her own wedding in an off-the-rack black Morgane Le Fay dress, a choice that she regrets to this day. The actress made the reluctant choice in order to keep her wedding low-key and a secret as the press would have gotten the wind of a wedding had she been on a lookout for a fancy, white wedding gown.
When Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively’s choice of wedding venue caused a controversy because of its horrid history
They might be the Internet’s favourite couple to obsess over, but Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively’s 2012 wedding ceremony caused trouble for the couple. The wedding venue chosen by the actors was a former plantation where a brick-building business that used slaves thrived before the Civil War. The plantation also proudly displayed nine slave cabins, called the ‘Slave Street’. Both Reynolds and Lively issued public apologies for their part in glorifying a place that has such a violent and oppressive history. The couple also donated $200,000 to NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund and announced that they needed to educate themselves on systemic racism so that they can do better in the future.
When Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma got married in Italy and set off the trend of destination weddings among Bollywood celebrities
Little did we know when Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma shared images from their picturesque wedding ceremony in Tuscany, Italy, that it would become a trend for Bollywood celebrities to get married in stunning locales. Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh picked Lake Como, Italy for their wedding ceremony, while Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas chose Udaipur for their nuptials. Katrina Kaif and Vicky Kaushal snuck off to Fort Barwara in Sawai Madhopur district, Rajasthan, to get married surrounded by close friends and family.
