Putting the speculations to rest, it can now be confirmed that Ali Fazal and Richa Chadha will get married in Mumbai in the first week of October in a two-day ceremony — an intimate wedding followed by a grand reception. Both functions will happen at a south Mumbai hotel. While the wedding will be a close-knit affair with just the couple’s immediate family and close friends in attendance, the reception will have their friends from the film industry joining in the celebrations.

The pre-wedding festivities will begin at a venue near Delhi at the end of September and continue for three days. There will be a three-day gap between the Delhi and Mumbai events so that the family can take a breather.

Interestingly, the couple has chosen a royal heritage fort property near the Delhi-Jaipur highway, a three-hour drive from the capital, for their pre-wedding events. The heritage palace will host the couple, their families and extended families from Delhi, Lucknow and the ones settled abroad. Ali’s grandmother will fly down from Canada to attend the Delhi and Mumbai ceremonies. The celebration at the heritage property will include sangeet and mehendi ceremonies as well as a cocktail party.

After three days, the action will move to Mumbai, where the couple will tie the knot in an intimate ceremony, followed by a grand reception with around 400 guests. A quirky ‘save the date’ invite has already been sent out. While Richa is currently shooting for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Heeramandi in Film City, Mumbai, Ali is busy with Mirzapur 3 in Varanasi. They are slated to wrap up their work by mid-September, after which they will dive deep into their wedding preparations.

Ali and Richa, who have been in a relationship for many years, were to get married in April 2020, but their plan went awry due to the pandemic. They initially felt that if the situation improved, they could tie the knot by the end of 2020. However, in a tragic turn of events, Ali’s mother passed away on June 17, 2020, in Lucknow. Given the circumstances, the couple decided to move the wedding ahead until things seemed better logistically, also adhering to the health and safety factor.

In a previous chat, when their wedding was postponed, Richa had told Bombay Times, “We would not like to endanger anyone due to our celebration. It is only wise to wait. This was inevitable. There’s nothing we could do to control this, so we took a sensible decision.”

Ali had said, “Of course, it is disheartening because we were all geared up, and preparations were in full swing, but it is fine. The idea is to celebrate our special day with people close to us — our friends and family. Once things settle down and when the time is right, hopefully, we will come back, and everyone will celebrate with us.”

It looks like the new, post-pandemic world is ready to celebrate another big Bollywood shaadi.