The Magazine · Celebrity Weddings
Deepika and Ranveer at Lake Como: two ceremonies, one perfect secret
A Konkani ceremony one day, an Anand Karaj the next, on the terraces of Villa del Balbianello. Inside the 2018 wedding that honoured everything.
In November 2018, Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh took over Villa del Balbianello, the lakeside villa whose terraces film scouts dream about, and married twice. On the first day, a Konkani ceremony in the tradition of Deepika's family, the bride in gold and ivory. On the second, an Anand Karaj honouring Ranveer's Sindhi and Sikh heritage, in Sabyasachi red with the words sada saubhagyavati bhava embroidered into her veil. Two faiths, two wardrobes, one wedding, and not a single leaked photograph until the couple released their own.
The dual ceremony as the main event
Plenty of couples merge traditions into one hybrid service. DeepVeer did the opposite: each ceremony was held whole, on its own day, in its own dress code, with its own rituals intact. For multicultural couples everywhere, and Britain is full of them, the model is liberating. Nothing needs diluting; the wedding simply needs more calendar. The two full ceremonies format is now standard advice for interfaith South Asian couples, and this wedding is the reference image.
Como as the new Rajasthan
Indian destination weddings had meant palace hotels in Udaipur and Jodhpur. Balbianello moved the map: the drama of an Indian wedding set against Italian lake light created a hybrid aesthetic, marigolds on Renaissance stone, that planners have been recreating since. Lake Como's wedding economy noticed; the villa circuit now hosts a steady procession of South Asian weddings, many planned from London and Leicester as much as Mumbai.
The details that endured
The veil embroidery started a personalisation wave: Indian brides now stitch names, dates and blessings into dupattas as routinely as Western brides embroider hems. The controlled photo release, following the Virushka playbook, confirmed secrecy as the genre's new etiquette. And the Bengaluru and Mumbai receptions afterwards, in headline making Zuhair Murad and more Sabyasachi, completed the now canonical arc: private wedding abroad, public celebration at home. It is the shape of the modern Bollywood marriage, and increasingly of the British Asian one too.
