The lucky bride was Vanisha Mittal. She is the daughter of Lakshmi Mittal, a steel tycoon who has made billions. In 2004, she married a London banker named Amit Bhatia. She was 23 years old at the time, and some of her wedding events were held at the Palace of Versailles (which has never hosted a private function), Hotel Bristol, and the Jardin-des-Tuileries. Guests stayed at the Hotel Intercontinental in Paris. The wedding festivities took place over 5 days, and when everything was said and done, the reported cost of the event was $60 million! Forbes.com even acknowledged the wedding in an article about billionaire nuptials.
The press was not allowed to go to the wedding, so it’s very hard to find pictures. I did find a few pictures of part of the invitation that was sent out:
- Image courtesy of WeddingSutra.com
Image courtesy of WeddingSutra.com
About 1,200 guests received an invitation that was hand-painted.It included romantic poems, and one of them was written by one of Vanisha’s family members. The invitation was composed of twenty pages, and it had information for each event that was taking place during the five day celebration.
I’ve found mixed descriptions of the rest of the invitation. Some places report that the invitations were presented in silver boxes, and others say they were delivered along with a 5kg hand carved silver centerpiece, and there was even speculation that jade necklaces and diamond watches accompanied the invitations. It’s hard to know for sure since the finer details were private.
So exactly how much were the invitations? No one knows! That information was never divulged to the public, but wedding experts say that they’re the most expensive invitations ever made. It’s a little bit disappointing that we don’t know the price tag on the most expensive invitations ever made. Let’s do a “what if” scenario:
The stationery usually takes up about 3% of the wedding budget, so if we did the math and they followed the average trend (which is slim!), the invitations could have cost a whopping $1.8 million. If we break that down and they did, in fact, send invitations to 1,200 people, the invitations would cost $1,500 each. Now, that would be the cost if they spent 3% of the budget on the invitations alone. Remember, stationery includes invitations, programs, place-cards, signage, and thank you notes.
Now that I’ve introduced you to the most expensive wedding invitations, I’m going to give you a few tips on how to save money on your stationery. Be sure to check back on Friday!
Happy Planning!
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