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Nobody had a whiff about Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli’s wedding until it happened that too at a remote location in Italy. The couple managed to keep it a secret even from the teams they employed to make the arrangements. “We used fake names while talking to the caterer. We wanted to have a home-style wedding,” Anushka had admitted. Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone’s Lake Como wedding was yet another spectacle, but friends and fans had to wait till the couple shared official pictures on the ‘gram. Even the bestest efforts of the media to send drones went in vain, as Deepika deployed a decoy to guard her wedding look! Priyanka Chopra-Nick Jonas and Vicky Kaushal-Katrina Kaif chose Rajasthan’s palaces for their royal weddings, as a bonus they could enjoy a privacy away from media glare.
Planning a dream wedding is no mean feat and planning such grandiose celebrity weddings calls for added collaborative efforts from several expert teams behind the scenes to make it a smooth enjoyable affair. In this week’s #BigStory, we take you behind the scenes of the big fat (secret) Bollywood weddings!
The birth of NDAs
While it cannot be denied that celebrity worshipping and stalking has been prevalent from the very advent of cinema, yet the extent of intrusion in the life of a celebrity has increased manifold and become irksome in the last decade. As a result, celebrities have resorted to the practice of signing Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) with various third parties for any social event in their life. In the last few years numerous celebrity couples have made use of this practice and made people sign NDAs for their weddings with various third parties including wedding planners, third party vendors and guests. This practice has only evolved in India in the past few years, however has been followed for decades in other western countries.
Media and Entertainment practitioner Ameet Naik and partner Madhu Gadodia from the law firm Naik Naik & Co, who’ve been privy to such cases, chime in on the trend and say, “A wedding is a private event. The purpose of signing these contracts is that their privacy is respected. This is a practice which is going on internationally also and in India also. There is a lot of curiosity about a celebrity’s life and it is very difficult for them to maintain privacy. However, some events of life are intimate which one would like to share with selected known people and not make it public. Marriage is one such event, hence it is not just the contract but the underlying spirit and the right to privacy that should be respected. If there is a breach, it will entitle the celebrity to seek injunctive reliefs in addition to damages subject to being proven in court. However, it has not been tested in court in India so far.”
The wedding trousseau
Gone are the days when brides and grooms followed standard practices while choosing their wedding attire. The most important day of your life should look and feel like you most importantly. Not just celebrity brides, all brides are now opting for an outfit that resonates with their personality. Costume designer Neeta Lulla who has designed bridal outfits for celebs like Aishwarya Rai, Shilpa Shetty, Esha Deol, Ahana Deol, Genelia D’Souza and most recently Bharti Singh says, “You have to keep in mind what is the bride’s aspiration, how she wants to look. What is it that can create a difference for the bride and with the kind of statement that you make on the dress.”
Meeting the briefs and specific demands of the celebrity brides could be quite a challenge. Recalling designing clothes for celeb brides, Lulla adds, “Whether it was Aishwarya, or Esha, Ahana, Genelia or Bharti Singh, everybody’s brief was that they wanted to bring in a bit of their culture into the outfit and they wanted to look the prettiest. So basically it is about how you can make a difference to the celebs looking like a beautiful bride rather than someone who’s wearing a bridal outfit for a film. It’s a very thin line that you need to work on, that aspect. A lot of celebs are different, like somebody who would like to go completely over-the-top, some like to have a simplistic look, somebody who wants to tie up the bun, there have been some who like to keep their hair open and make it very simple. So everybody’s got their own different kinds of briefs when it comes to how they want to look.”
Designing bridal outfits can be a long and tedious process. “It takes at least 2-3 months to do a bridal outfit. Depending on if it’s a woven saree like Aishwarya had, then it takes 4-5 months or even 6 months. I don’t have more than two or three sittings with a bride. I have one to understand what the celebrity wants, then I have a sort of final fitting, and then one for a final sitting. If the outfit needs like 400 hours or 600 hours of work, maybe 80 karigars sit on a bridal outfit or 90 karigars. Then there is a Master who will make the cutting and then there are three to four karigars to stitch. It takes about three days to stitch it, because then things are done with handwork for the detailing that goes into it,” shares Neeta.
When Alia Bhatt shared pictures of her wedding with Ranbir Kapoor on Instagram, the internet was buzzing with the little details that were incorporated in her outfit as per her wishes. “In any wedding, what people take home is the food and how the bride and groom are looking. The only difference for a celeb is that they are more in the limelight. Thanks to social media and everything, every bride and every celebrity wedding goes completely viral. With social media and all coming in there is a lot of scrutiny at these weddings as compared to earlier ones. But what’s beautiful is the fact that when playing a character, the celeb has certain inputs on themselves, but when the celeb is a bride, she completely succumbs to the designer’s process for creating a look, so that is beautiful,” she adds.
The venue, the menu and the guests
Any shaadi essentially has a venue, a menu and guests in varying capacities depending on the scale the wedding is held on. Expert wedding planners are employed at celebrity weddings who carry out everything from designing, to curating and executing from the get go. For celebrity weddings, getting the details right could be challenging as it involves a lot of nitty gritties where not only the bride and groom are involved, but even the brands are involved in most cases. Then of course, there is taking care of the VIPs, their pick-ups and drop-offs, stay arrangements, food preferences, special diets. Security aspect is a major factor to ensure that the confidentiality is not broken.
The event flow is another aspect that has multiple people on the job to take care of the bridal entry, of clearing the stage, ensuring that the music is right, the aroma, the lighting are right, the music is played on time. Behind-the-scenes production could be the most stressful and the toughest job because that is what shows! The planners need to ensure that it is meticulously planned and picture perfect. Remember those dreamy wedding videos of Anushka-Virat, or Priyanka-Nick, Ranveer-Deepika, or Rajkummar Rao-Patralekhaa?
Mudrika Dhoka, director of Chandra Weddings, has been a part of several starry weddings held in Rajasthan. Sharing her perspective, she says, “Curating weddings is a journey in which we feel for a day every bride and groom becomes a celeb as they are the center of our universe. Keeping in mind the dreams and aspirations of the couple is our utmost concern and realising them is our passion. Quintessential to the situation, behind-the-scenes is always a harmonious chaos as every member of the army is racing against time to deliver a dream. Every element is meticulously placed and the venue gilded to materialise a fairy tale. The months of planning, numerous meetings, countless conversations and endless WhatsApp chats all boil down to the D-day and the result is evident by the smile on our clients’ faces.”
Decor and lighting
Decor and lighting are two things that bring the venue alive for a celebration. Expert decor consultants step in once the wedding date is fixed, the venue booked and the outfit finalised. Remember, the celebrity wedding pictures look so pretty because there is enough thought put into it to make everything look cohesive.
Owner of Altair Decor, Janki Desai, who has orchestrated decor and lighting at several celebrity weddings, sheds some light, “Consulting on everything from floor plans and lighting design to flowers, furniture, linens, and attire, we tie all the elements together, which pretty much make the mood and feel of the wedding. We help with the decisions that will make the whole event kind of look cohesive. That’s basically the goal. It’s like an artistic eye that allows us to kind of conceptualize the whole event and transform the space according to the couple’s personality.”
Recalling her experience of working on Farhan Akhtar and Shibani Dandekar’s wedding decor, Janki shares, “Farhan and Shibani are very real people. They wanted everything to feel personalised, warm. They didn’t want anything that’s over-the-top, just super humbling. Because their personalities are also very… they like greenery and real stuff. So that’s why they chose the house which was such an intimate and actually special place to them that they thought bringing their people there would be the best. So because they like it organic, given their flower arrangements and different things, nothing was in a bouquet, nothing was tight, everything was free flowing.”
Such elaborate planning of decor to match with the theme and the aesthetics of the bride and groom could take up to a month, shares Janki. “Celebs are so used to this work and they are so fast with everything and they are also so trustworthy, that I feel they kind of leave it to you. Because they believe in respecting the professional spaces of each creative individual. And with other clients, it usually takes about three to four months,” she adds.
Capturing moments
It’s those few special moments that get transformed into pictures or captured in videos that remain as a physical form of memory forever. Photos and videos hold a special place in weddings, and we’ve witnessed the hype it can create with the recent Ranbir-Alia wedding.
Photos and videos of Anushka-Virat, Priyanka-Nick, Rajkummar-Patralekhaa, Ranveer-Deepika were talked about for days. Among all the recent Bollywood weddings we’ve witnessed, Anushka Sharma’s wedding had set a new bar. All the spotlight was on The Wedding Filmer team as soon as her wedding video was released. Recalling the time, Vishal Punjabi, CEO of The Wedding Filmer says, “Their wedding was so secretive, I didn’t know who I was filming for until I got there. It was around the time Prince Harry and Megan Markle were also rumoured to marry, so I had my fingers and toes crossed!” reveals Vishal Punjabi. “Anushka and Virat gave me full creative freedom and Shaadi Squad did everything just right for their wedding video to turn out the way it did,” he adds.
Unlike earlier, celebrity weddings now are way more grandiose, there is so much frenzy around it that tight security has to be employed. There’s so much secrecy that those involved have to sign NDAs. Vishal disagrees, “That’s not entirely true. All of the celebrity weddings we’ve filmed have been intimate, close, family affairs. It is a wedding, so they have every right to make it special. That’s the point. The security and secrecy is because the internet isn’t as beautiful a place as it used to be!”
Making these heart melting videos from an event that can be as chaotic as an Indian celebrity wedding is no mean feat. It’s hard to impress a celebrity who faces the camera day in and day out and looks fabulous on the screen all the time. “For me personally, creating something for actors and actresses, who are used to seeing themselves on screen with music by famous composers and still blow their minds with our music and visuals is difficult, but oh so fulfilling!” says Vishal.
But when it’s a wedding, situations tend to go sideways. It is then that a person’s true ability to save the day comes into play. “When Farhan Akhtar called me to film his wedding, I was already booked to film Anmol Ambani’s wedding that evening. I had to drive to Khandala and then back to Bombay and film two different weddings on the same day. I was nervous because I didn’t want to miss a moment. Thankfully it all worked out,” he recalls.
Security arrangements and no-mobile phone policy
These have become an integral part of celebrity weddings, as was seen in the most recent case of Ranbir-Alia, or in the cases of Vicky-Katrina, Priyanka-Nick, Ranveer-Deepika, or Anushka-Virat earlier. Police and district officials are involved for security and permissions. Professional security agencies are employed and mobile phone cameras are a strict no-no to safeguard their privacy.
Yaseen Khan has been in the security business for years and has been the personal bodyguard of Shah Rukh Khan. He founded his own security agency that has overseen security arrangements at multiple celebrity weddings including Yuvraj Singh-Hazel Keech, Priyanka Chopra-Nick Jonas, Ranveer Singh-Deepika Padukone to name a few. Speaking to ETimes, he says, “Security arrangements vary from event to event depending on the venue. We work in close coordination with the event managers and wedding planners. First, there is a recce of the location, a proper understanding of the guest list is taken. The entry points and exit points are taken into account and then the security arrangements are decided upon. The security personnel are deployed at least two hours before the actual event. All the unwanted staff are moved out and only those required to work inside are allowed to stay. These people have special passes from the event management team.”
“Yuvraj Singh and Hazel Keech had three different locations for their wedding functions – Goa, Chandigarh and Delhi. The security arrangement at each location was different. For Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas‘ wedding palace, we had deployed 40 security personnel from our team as there were around 8-10 entry and exit points that had to be blocked. Everyday 400-500 people were passing through these points and we had to check and block each of their mobile cameras. About 300-350 people were the working staff in the palace. None were allowed to enter without checking. Likewise, at Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh’s wedding also, all the mobile phones of the staff members were blocked,” he adds.
Security is a big responsibility and the toughest part about managing it at a celebrity wedding is gatecrashers, asserts Yaseen. “A couple of celebrity weddings that I worked on, there have been plenty of gatecrashers. Some of them get fake invitations. I can recall one such incident from Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma’s wedding when my staff pointed out a suspicious guy who arrived in a BMW, well dressed, with two bouncers in safari. We noticed he wasn’t interacting or mingling with anybody, just taking selfies with the celebrities. When asked, he said he was a proxy of a certain VIP guest that he named. When we checked with Virat and Anushka’s managers, we realised that VIP was invited for the Delhi event, not Mumbai. So we politely asked the guy to leave, he got angry but he had no excuse.”
That sums up the equation of star weddings perfectly. Those who watch the wedding from outside, would give anything to be privy to what’s going on inside. While those within the hallowed walls will guard their privacy to no end. Some would say, that’s a match made in heaven.
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