Floor-to-ceiling floral installations. Performances by pop megastars. Catering by Carbone. A security guard just for the gold-plated cutlery.

For the wealthiest people on Earth, it’s no longer enough to have a luxury wedding. Today, the new normal is a “super-wedding,” akin to a music festival in size and with costs running into the millions.

Anant and Radhika Ambani’s three-day wedding in India last year included a custom-built glass palace and a performance by Rihanna. The wedding of Sofia Richie Grainge and Atlantic Records Chief Executive Elliot Grainge in 2023 spanned multiple days in Antibes, France, featured haute couture Chanel gowns and an afterparty headlined by rock band Good Charlotte. When Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez tie the knot in Venice in a multiday celebration that’s anticipated next week, their event is expected to raise the bar even higher.

Anant Ambani, son of businessman Mukesh Ambani, arrives with his fiance Radhika Merchant on the red carpet during the sangeet ceremony at Jio World Centre, Mumbai, India, July 5, 2024. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

A motorised carriage passes by the decorated gate of Antilia, the Ambani residence, during the pre-wedding ceremony of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, in Mumbai, India, July 3, 2024. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

The trend has turned planners into “wedding producers,” as London luxury planner Sarah Haywood put it, leading armies of vendors in pulling off what couples hope will not only be the most memorable event of their lives, but their guests’ lives too.

“It used to be about fireworks, then it was about drones,” said Colin Cowie, a luxury planner who’s done weddings for celebrities like Jennifer Lopez. “Now, it’s shooting fireworks from drones.”

A multiday luxury wedding with 200 guests now carries a price tag of about $4 million, according to Jamie Simon, director of events at luxury planning firm Banana Split, which brought the Grainge wedding to life. Cowie said he’s worked on weddings that cost eight figures.

The cost includes upscale vendors for everything from cocktail-hour caviar to $75,000 hanging installations to nightclub-worthy sound and lighting. Those vendors need vendors too: Caterers are now hiring food stylists to make sure their culinary creations are displayed artfully. Bartenders tap mixologists to craft bespoke cocktails. Florists are working with drapery artists, who add huge swaths of fabric for additional layers of drama. Nearly everyone signs a nondisclosure agreement before the work begins.

“Luxury weddings have turned theatrical,” said Preston Bailey, an event designer who has planned weddings like Ivanka Trump’s and last year’s Ambani wedding.

80,000 rose stems

Details about the Bezos-Sánchez wedding have remained largely under wraps. The couple hired the wedding planner Lanza & Baucina, a discreet London-based group that planned George Clooney’s 2014 wedding, and is reportedly tying the knot on a Venetian island. Protests against the couple using Venice for their event are already under way.

A general view of the exterior facade of seven star hotel, Aman Resort, where the guests of US actor George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin are arriving to a attend their allegedly wedding party in Venice, Italy, 27 September 2014. EPA/ANDREA MEROLA

A representative for Bezos and Sánchez declined to comment. Lanza & Baucina said that its guiding principles and the instructions of its client call for the “minimizing of any disruption to the city, the respect for its residents and institutions and the overwhelming employment of locals in the crafting of the events.”

A luxury destination wedding takes a village to produce. Haywood in London works with teams as large as 500 people for the events she plans. “We’ve got 80,000 rose stems here. Can you imagine how many people it takes to condition those flowers?” she said, taking a call while setting up a wedding near Monaco. She declined to name the couple.

Beyond manpower to set up, assist and serve, Haywood also maintains a 20-person team to assist with small details like steaming bridesmaid dresses. They also look after family VIPs—making sure, for example, that “the grandparents have a drink at all times.”

“This type of client lives in a beautiful home, and owns multiple homes that are fully staffed, so when they come and host a wedding, they require this level of service,” Haywood added.

Bailey said clients typically “hope to show the guests something they’ve never experienced before.” Bailey has built $600,000 structures, rented 10-foot candelabras and ordered custom furniture from Egypt. He typically works with silk flowers for overhead installations, which can cost $25,000 to $75,000.

Wedding decor now sometimes requires the work of a drapery artist, who swaddles walls and ceilings with miles of fabrics.

“Drapery is the showcase of the party,” said Tommy Murphy, a drapery artist with the Orlando-based Swag Decor. He recently worked on a luxury wedding in an upstate New York barn that had $170,000 worth of drapery. “It doesn’t matter if you spend $1 million on flowers if you have ugly walls,” he said.

More wealthy couples are also opting for video mapping, where lighting artists project 3-D images throughout a venue.

“They are immersive,” said Ira Levy , a luxury lighting designer, who said such light projections cost $60,000 to $100,000. “We’ve taken people through different parts of the world.”

Bailey recently commissioned a $500,000 holograph of a bride’s deceased grandfather to share well wishes.

“For billionaires, if it’s exciting, they’ll go for it,” Bailey said.

Celebrity chefs and million-dollar DJs

Simon said Banana Split has worked with celebrity chefs like Wolfgang Puck and Gordon Ramsay on weddings, though other clients prefer to keep it as casual as a menu of chicken and fries.

At this level, it’s become common to work with a food stylist, to help “the menu tell a story,” said Olivier Cheng, a caterer based in New York. He said luxury catering can range from $750 to $1,000 per head.

Cheng recalled hiring a food stylist to work on a luxury wedding and set up a night-market style buffet with multiple food stalls. “We created a spice-market story. We created a sardine story,” said Cheng. “People want more than just a three-course menu.”

Super-weddings today often include a celebrity entertainer, where families shell out for a headliner to perform a couple of hits. “The Russians started this,” Haywood said.

Families have paid top dollar to hire musicians like Paul McCartney, Elton John, the Rolling Stones and Lionel Richie. Justin Bieber reportedly earned $10 million for performing at the Ambani wedding last summer. Through a representative, Bieber declined to comment. undefined

The only musician he has found to be not bookable, Simon said, is Adele. Adele did not respond to a request for comment.

Increasingly, name-brand DJs like Gryffin and Martin Solveig are becoming in demand too, as couples look to turn the wedding afterparty into an Ibiza nightclub.

“Even the DJs charge a million dollars,” Bailey said.

Haywood said she’s seen a slight drop in inquiries from American families, indicating that some wealthy Americans aren’t feeling confident in the economy. She predicts more luxury American weddings will move abroad now that tariffs have hit the industry .

“You want European luxury? It doesn’t make sense to import it,” she said.

Pumping AC into a castle

Haywood said it can be challenging to work with a population “where no one says no to them.”

“They’ll show me a photo and I’m like, That’s great California light, but you’re getting married in London on a rainy afternoon,” Haywood said.

She said a couple recently requested white peacocks at an August wedding in Italy—a request she couldn’t fulfill because summer is the peacock shedding season, and so the birds would be featherless. (Not to mention aviary restrictions due to bird flu.) The bride was fixated on the detail, and Haywood said she gently had to push back. “Ultimately you try to give the client what they want. But you have to steer them.”

Simon recalled sending a courier on a private jet from London to the Maldives to deliver celery salt because the couple felt the wedding’s Bloody Mary cocktails needed it.

“You want to make dreams come true, no matter how trivial it might sound,” he said, adding that his role requires him to take all requests seriously. “You can’t tell someone how to drive their Rolls-Royce.”

Bailey recalled a time when flowers shipped from the Netherlands for a wedding in Kuwait got stuck at the airport due to an alleged customs issue. “I had to send someone with $3,000 or $4,000 cash. At that point, you’re willing to do anything.”

Ruth Minkowitz, a luxury event planner in Italy, said Venice weddings like Bezos and Sánchez’s are a special kind of logistical nightmare. When her family’s company, Elite Kosher Events, has a wedding in Venice, they start getting ready six days in advance, instead of three.

“Food, plates, material, everything, it all goes by boat,” said Minkowitz. “You need a lot more personnel, just to schlep.”

Minkowitz said she worked on a wedding at a historic castle on the outskirts of Rome two summers ago, where the family requested the ancient building be pumped with air conditioning. Minkowitz said her team had to buy voltage from the Rome municipality to ensure they had enough energy.

“Italians would have been OK,” she said. “But we made the castle freezing. In July. Because the Americans like it cold.”

Write to Chavie Lieber at Chavie.Lieber@WSJ.com