The upcoming wedding of Bollywood stars Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai will be the greatest marriage in India's modern history and could be as big as that of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, a media report said today.

"With a guest list expected to exceed 5,000, helicopters hired to shower petals over the reception and the astrological charts finally predicting a union that is truly blessed, the marriage of the former Miss World Aishwarya Rai and Bollywood leading man Abhishek Bachchan, the son of Asia's most famous actor Amitabh Bachchan is expected to happen within a month," a leading foreign daily reported.

The ceremony, set to be held over 10 days in a private estate on the outskirts of Mumbai and a palace in Rajasthan, is being hailed as a Bollywood fairytale and India's answer to the coupling of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, the report said.

"For Indians across the world this wedding will be as big as Charles and Diana's was for the British", Bollywood columnist Amita Ghosh was quoted in the report.

"The question people are asking right now is: why all the fuss about Liz Hurley? Perhaps this is why the media in India have turned against Liz, nobody really knows who she is. Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan are our real stars and their wedding is the only one that counts," Ghosh said.