Foreigners keen to get married in the opulent and colorful style of Indian maharajas are heading in increasing numbers for Rajasthan, the desert state in northwest India, that boasts more princely families and fairy tale palaces than any other part of India.
Rajasthan has always been popular with tourists but tour operators say that it has now become a wedding destination for Europeans and Americans seeking a grandeur to make their marriages memorable.
"I get over 20 inquiries every month. Every month, at least four or five foreign couples get married here. They know we have a rich cultural heritage and they want the works -- all the rituals and ceremonies of a traditional Indian wedding such as the mehndi (henna ceremony) and sangeet (musical evening)," said Ankit Bhargava, director, Regal Weddings in Udaipur.
Bhargava, like other tour operators, is promoting Rajasthan as a unique venue where couples can enjoy a truly royal wedding with decorated elephants, camels and horses, ancient forts and palaces, big brass bands, processions, pathways lined with petals, liveried palace guards holding lances and flaming torches, swirling dancers, and fireworks.
A celebrity photographer couple -- Briton Nigel Parry, 43, who is based in New York and his American wife Melanie Dunea, 35 -- exchanged vows on New Year's Eve at Devi Garh Castle.
"It was magical, indescribable. I wore a traditional red silk bridal outfit and sat on a decorated elephant with my father. Our procession went on for 2km and had a band in it, horses, camels and folk dancers. I exchanged garlands with Nigel and we were showered with rose petals. The castle was totally lit up. It was a dream come true," said Dunea.
Saira Mehmood, a 30-year-old singer from London of Pakistani extraction, got married to her British fiance Stephen at Devi Garh last year. She chose the castle because she wanted the pageantry of an Indian wedding but without the turmoil of pleasing both families if the venue had been in London.
"We wanted a spectacular location and that's what we got. I drove in an open top red Chevrolet with guards, horses and camels alongside. It was an Indian fantasy, very moving and special," she said.
Stephen, who works in music PR, said Devi Garh "surpassed" all his expectations: "My wife-to-be had been eating up my brain about this place for months but she was right. It is the place to get married."
If weddings in Rajasthan are lavish, it's because India's maharajas know how to put on a great show. Insane extravagance used to be a hallmark of nearly all these families, from architecture, jewels, food and sex to the armies of servants employed in their palaces.
Their legendary extravagance used to dazzle even European royalty. The wedding of Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur, for example, was so lavish that it made it into the Guinness Book of Records.
The erstwhile maharajas of Rajasthan have been entertaining tourists in royal style since 1971 when Indira Gandhi divested them of their titles, abolished the privy purse and demoted them to the rank of ordinary citizen of a democratic republic -- much to their chagrin.
Suddenly, they had to figure out the tricky business of earning a living. Most soon realised that the best way of earning a living was to turn their fabulous properties into heritage hotels. One example of a particularly successful prince-turned-hotelier is the Maharana of Mewar in Udaipur, Arvind Singh. With 1,500 years of history behind it, the house of Mewar is the oldest dynasty in the world and he is its 76th Maharana.
His palaces provide a majestic backdrop for weddings. "We can organize pageantry in a way that simply can't be done anywhere else. Just one palace alone offers so many different venues for different functions -- courtyards, pavilions, durbar halls, and rooftop terraces," said a marketing agent for Singh's HRH Group of Hotels.
Royal weddings don't come cheap. A five-day affair involving around 120 people at Shiv Niwas can cost approximately US$250,000. A four-night affair at Devigarh for 100 people could set you back over US$100,000.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of