Thursday 5 May 2011

Bollywood celebs at Jaipur wedding

They come here as guests, at weddings in the city, shake a leg, rake in the moolah and also make the city as famous as them

In the past couple of years Bollywood stars have made frequent chakkars of the Pink City – all to shake a leg at some lavish wedding of the rich and the famous.

Also, these days, they love to come to the city, as one wedding planner tells us, because it is now front-of-mind for celebs to perform at a wedding in the city. Remember the wedding of the Dubai-based businessman, Prakash Chandnani's daughter Monika with Rakesh in December last year? Not only did Chandnani choose Jaipur as the wedding venue, he also invited a host of actors to perform at the sangeet sandhya. Among them were Malaika Arora Khan, Minissha Lamba and Neha Dhupia. Bobby Deol, Sanjay Kapoor, Lalit Pandit and Aditya Pancholi were also part of the function. As the planner adds, "Earlier, it was difficult to convince the stars to come to Jaipur and perform at a wedding until they already knew the bride/ groom or their families. However, these days, it need not be a royal wedding or a political bigwig's for the actors to come and dance."  

Another wedding in the city that brought stars by the droves was that of Rishabh Tongya and Divya Modi. The reception of the couple saw performances by Sameera Reddy, Sunidhi Chauhan, Eesha Koppikhar and American guitarist Roni Benise. The reception was anchored by Mini Mathur and DJ Aqeel was at the console. When we'd spoken to Sameera earlier, she had told us, "I chose to perform at this wedding as it was extravagant and the families are fantastic." The sangeet of this wedding also saw performances by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Anuradha Paudwal among others. Another wedding, that of the Jaipur-based businessman, Gaurav Singhi was also a starry affair with TV actor Shama Sikander and Suchitra Pillai taking to the dance floor. 

And then, there was the big-ticket wedding of adman Ajay Chopra's son in Jaipur – where Rahat Fateh Ali Khan had come to perform, and Sunidhi again flew in for an NRI wedding. One of the event managers in the city, who handles such big-ticket weddings, explains, "There are a lot of weddings in Jaipur these days for which stars come to perform and they charge a whopping amount.

Some weddings are hushed down-affairs and nobody even gets a whiff of who's coming when, because both the host and the stars keep it under wraps. Singer Kunal Ganjawala performed at a private function in the city for which he had charged approx `12 lakhs. Sonu Nigam and Sunidhu Chauhan charge `18-20 lakhs to perform at a wedding. Agar singers itna charge karte hain toh actors kitna karte hoonge? Getting actors to perform at weddings has now become a mark of having arrived. Yeh social status ka sawaal hai."

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