Mumbai: Celebrity wedding photographer Joseph Radhik, known for capturing some of India’s biggest and most exclusive weddings, has revealed that 95% of the photographs from grand Indian weddings like that of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant are never made public. According to him, the most meaningful images are often the private, emotional moments kept solely for the families to cherish.

“More than 95%, that’s how it is,” Radhik said during an appearance on Ranveer Allahbadia’s podcast when asked about how many photos of his were not published. “Those are your moments. You’ll see them 20, 25, or 50 years later and you’ll have happy memories associated with them. It’s not that you don’t want to share them with the public, it’s just not relevant to them.”

Radhik, who has photographed top celebrity weddings including those of Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma, and Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas, cited the Ambani wedding as an event that was dazzling on the outside but deeply personal at its core.

He recalled being overwhelmed during the varmala ceremony at the Ambani wedding in Mumbai.

“Radhika and Anant were exchanging their wedding garland with full smiles. On one side was Kim Kardashian, another side was Smriti Irani, here was Bhaijaan (Salman Khan), and there stood the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. I had to block all that out and just focus on the couple.”

Despite being accustomed to celebrity-filled environments, Radhik admitted the Ambani wedding was on a different scale altogether.

“It took at least 6 to 8 months for me to get back to shooting regular weddings without needing to readjust or recalibrate myself,” he said.

He also spoke in awe of the wedding venue, which featured a life-size recreation of the Banaras ghats near a tunnel in Mumbai, calling the décor “unbelievable”.

While the grandeur is often what catches public attention, Radhik emphasised that great wedding photography depends less on spectacle and more on understanding the couple’s emotions.

“You can’t tell them to act a certain way. You have to feel what the couple is going through. Weddings are actually very boring; Like test cricket- it looks exciting in the scorecard, but you have to wait for 25 balls, sometimes 200 balls to see something exciting happen. Weddings are exactly like that,” he quipped.

The Ambani-Merchant wedding, held in July 2024, was a four-day affair beginning with lavish celebrations at the family's Jamnagar estate, followed by a European cruise, and culminating in Mumbai with traditional functions like sangeet, mehendi, and haldi. The guest list included Bollywood’s biggest stars, top musicians, global tech billionaires like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, and political leaders.

The couple celebrated their first wedding anniversary on July 12, 2025.