Seven years after Dhai Akshar Prem Ke in which Abvhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai costarred for the first time, "the prince of acting" and the "princess of beauty" got married to the hold chants of 11 pundits.

The "royal wedding" has far surpassed any other in the history of Bollywood in terms of hype and media coverage, more than even steel tycoon L.N. Mittal's daughter's or the more recent Liz Hurley and Arun Nayar's.

Between Bachchan's upmarket bungalows, Prateeksha and Jalsa, and Rai's Le Mer, the nuptials have been conducted amid tight security, select list of invitees (which started with 20 and ended in excess of 350) and hysterical glare of flashbulbs and electronic cameras, two of Bollywood's leading stars solemnised their "for better of for worse" vows.

With Aishwarya enetering the Bachchan fold, the market value of the family has shot up to Rs 1,000 crore!

"It was a beautiful wedding," then sounds very sweet and simple as Anil Kapoor has called it. The wedding was carried out according to Hindu customs (Bant style, which is Ash's community, and North Indian style and also Bengali style, Ash's mother-in-law being a Bengali) and rituals and the ceremony, starting with a procession of cars and a luxury bus carrying invited guests and family members to the Bachchan residence.

Every bit the grand filmy wedding with colour, confusion, chaos and crowds as Abhishek Bachchan, astride a horse, wearing an off-white sherwani and a white turban bedecked with flowers, arrived on the hot evening to wed Aishwarya Rai.

The only controversy that the media could pounce upon was an obvious crank called Jahnavi Kapoor, whose background and track record did not necessitate any reaction from the Bacxhchans or the Rais. The "mentally disturbed" and little-known Bollywood extra slashed her wrist ahead of the wedding, claiming Abhishek had promised to marry her; she was later arrested for attempoting suicide.

"There's no monarchy in India but there are the Bachchans -- this is the dream wedding," said a top marketing consultancy spokesman. Movie-mad Indians have been feasting on details of the couple's wedding in which Rai, 33, wore a red sari for the traditional Hindu ceremony, while the 32-year-old groom sported a ceremonial turban and gold-embroidered, cream-coloured sherwani coat.

Nobody minded the closely guarded event and hung onto every little detail and trivia that filtered out or were shown 24x7 on grainy zoom shots from TV cameras stationed all over.

Aishwarya reached the Bachchans' Juhu residence, Prateeksha, in a silver Mercedes decorated with red and white flowers along with her mother and brother. At almost the same time, the baraat left the other Bachchan bungalow, Jalsa, nearby with a visibly anxious Amitabh, complete with a saffron turban, ushering his guests into the waiting superluxury buses that would take them to the wedding venue.

His face covered with a sehra of white flowers, Abhishek surprised all with a small jig (so typical of his pranks on the sets) before getting off the bus and waving cheerily and climbing onto his horse again at Prateeksha.

Amid the sea of saffron turbans sported by the baraatis, 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 completely blocked.

The wedding was the climax of three-day festivities that included a sangeet and a mehndi ceremony that were equally undercover.

The buzz on the AbhiAsh affair started last year and got pretty obvious even though nothing was announced officially till very late. 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 about their neighbours -- the lawns at the venue were covered with soundproofed, air-conditioned tents. Invited members of the film fraternity also kept their word to the first family of Bollywood with none of them letting out a word about the wedding before the huge hungama. - (SAMPURN)