How to Organise a Hush Hush Celebrity Wedding

The techniques by which superstars like Dhoni keep their marriage ceremonies secret.

To begin with, ask a relative or good friend to organise it, not a wedding planner. This reduces the odds of information leaking out. Keep the location, time, even identity of the couple secret. Book venues under fake names. Don’t let the photographer know the actual wedding they’ve been hired for. Beef up security. And you might just succeed in having a secret wedding, despite your celebrity status.

When it comes to celebrities, there is a difference between secret and private weddings. Says Parthip Thyagarajan, co-founder of wedding ezine weddingsutra.com, “At a private marriage, the media knows the date of the wedding, but has no access to the function. The couple may or may not come out to pose for photos. In a secret marriage, all guests and vendors are told to keep the date and venue a secret.” 

Neha Seth, CEO of Var Vadhu, a wedding management company, was head of catering at Grand Hyatt, Mumbai, when Shilpa Shetty’s friend approached her for Shilpa’s wedding function. “The booking was made incognito, and no one except the higher-ups knew about it,” she says. “On such occasions, we increase our security and keep secret entrances for the celebrities.”

“The most secretive wedding I have done so far is that of Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna,” says photographer Ram Bherwani. “With barely any notice, we were given an address—the terrace of some friends’ house. It turned out to be that of designers Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla. The wedding itself was a small affair with just 50 people.”

Many Bollywood couples have opted for secret marriages, from Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, to Sanjay Dutt and Maanyata, to Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singh.

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