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Aishwarya
and Abhishek: Honeymoon in Tahiti
02nd May 2007
Newly wed couple Aishwarya
Rai and Abhishek Bachchan are honeymooning apparently in Tahiti after passing
through New Zealand over the weekend.
On arrival at Auckland,
Ash and Abhishek reportedly disembarked using a separate entrance from
other business class passengers for their onward journey to Tahiti. They
did not exit the Auckland airport.
Reports add that Ash and
Abhishek were escorted out of a Singapore Airlines flight through a separate
entrance, which separated them from the other business class passengers,
on their arrival in Auckland. Later they headed towards Tahiti.
The Singapore Airlines staffer
requested a female passenger who was on the same flight as Ash and Abhi,
to give up her front-row business class seat so that a 'young honeymoon
celebrity couple' and their two security personnel could sit together.
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Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek
Bachchan were married
Cream of Bollywood at
heartthrobs' wedding
21.04.2007.LiveIndia.com
NEW DELHI: Bollywood stars Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek
Bachchan were married Friday in traditional Hindu ceremony, capping three
days of celebrations for Indian cinema's hottest couple. Bollywood, where
marriage is an oft-scripted theme, witnessed two of its leading actors,
Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, marry yesterday, with a Bollywood
actor calling it a ‘royal wedding’ between a ‘prince of acting’ and the
‘princess of beauty’. Seven years after they first appeared together in
a movie in 2000, actors Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai were solemnised
their much-hyped marriage yesterday evening in Mumbai in a ceremony at
Bachchan’s up-market bungalow.
Fewer than 100 guests had
been invited, most of them the cream of Bollywood. Not present was Sonia
Gandhi, who had once been was close to the Bachchans in the late 80s but
fell out with them over politics. Hundreds of police and security guards
kept out gatecrashers.
People began gathering at
the Bachchans' residence two days ago. Some came bearing boxes of sweets
and said they wanted to bless the couple. Other fans slept on the pavement
to catch a glimpse of their favourite stars who dropped by to offer congratulations. |
“It was a beautiful wedding.
Abhishek is the prince of acting nowadays and Aishwarya as we all know
is the princess of beauty,” Anil Kapoor, a leading Bollywood actor told.
The wedding, one of the most talked about events of the year, will be a
north Indian style ceremony with the duo exchanging garlands at around
6 pm
The wedding was carried
out according to Hindu customs and rituals and the ceremony, starting with
a procession of cars and a bus carrying invited guests and family members
to the Bachchan residence.
It was every bit the grand
filmy wedding with colour, confusion and crowds as Abhishek Bachchan, astride
a horse, wearing an off-white sherwani and a white turban bedecked with
flowers, arrived on a hot evening to wed Aishwarya Rai.
Bollywood’s power couple
finally tied the knot in a grand ceremony that held much of the nation
in thrall - never mind if the only details of the closely guarded event
that filtered out were grainy zoom shots from TV cameras stationed across
the road.
Aishwarya reached the Bachchans’
Juhu residence Prateeksha in a silver Mercedes decorated with flowers along
with her mother and brother.
Tight security has been
put in place for the function which is expected to go on till late tonight.
Around 1,000 policemen will be patrolling areas around 'Jalsa' and 'Prateeksha'
in addition to the private security guards hired by the Bachchans.
At almost the same time,
the barat left the other Bachchan bungalow Jalsa nearby, with a visibly
anxious Amitabh Bachchan, complete with a saffron turban, ushering his
guests into the waiting Volvo buses that would take them to the wedding
venue.
His face covered with a
sehra of white flowers, Abhishek did a small jig before getting off the
bus and waving cheerily and then getting on to his horse again at Prateeksha.
While photographers scrambled
to train their cameras at the goings-on, curious stargazers climbed up
trees, railings and even hoardings to get a first-hand view.
Amid the sea of saffron
turbans sported by the baratis, several close friends like yesteryear actor
Danny Denzongpa, industrialist Anil Ambani and director Goldie Behl could
be seen.
The Bollywood celebrities
who arrived to bless the couple also included Sonali Bendre, Preity Zinta,
Karan Johar, Ajay Devgan and Kajol.
With so many high-profile
guests, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and
Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh, at least 1,000 security personnel swarmed
both the flower bedecked Bachchan homes. The road outside Prateeksha was
blocked.
The wedding was the climax
of three-day festivities that included a sangeet and a mehndi ceremony
that were equally secretive.
The buzz around the Abhi-Ash
marriage started last year and had been steadily getting louder even though
the Bachchans never announced it officially because they wanted to keep
it a private affair.
TV shots and newspaper pictures
of guests, who kept floating in and out of their house from Wednesday,
were the only proof that the big fat Indian wedding was finally taking
place.
Both the Bachchan residences
were turned into fortresses and for the uninvited, getting in was next
to impossible.
The Bachchans not only took
care of their own privacy, they were thoughtful enough not to disturb their
neighbours - the lawns at the venue were covered with soundproofed, air-conditioned
tents.
Members of the film fraternity
who made it to the guest list showed co-operation towards the first family
of Bollywood - none of the invitees breathed out a single detail about
the wedding.
Police had to use batons
to control the crowd, who broke through barriers and climbed trees on Friday
to try to catch a glimpse of the couple.
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