Instagram and Twitter have changed the way how celebrities like Priyanka Chopra manage their life events.
You will have to wait a few more hours before Priyanka Chopra releases photos of her grand Hindu wedding to American pop singer Nick Jonas today at Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur on Instagram and Twitter.
After Deepika-Ranveer, Priyanka Chopra is the latest to join the trend of celebrity weddings where stars are notoriously controlling the flow of every tiny bit of information, something that governments around the world are struggling to do.
Celebrities like Priyanka Chopra have literally become the gatekeepers of their wedding deets, keeping a tab on every single picture shared by their friends and family.
This allows our stars to choose how they would want their fans to see their weddings, right from the lighting and colour in the pictures to the overall mood at the ceremony.
Celebrity couples are increasingly sharing photos where they are seen enjoying the ceremonies and having fun. Female Indian actors like Deepika and Priyanka, who for a major part of their careers play coy brides on screen, are now letting their hair down at their own weddings and shattering the shy bride stereotype. This also puts across the message that the bride and the groom are equal in their relationship.
Also read: Deepika Padukone’s hearty laughter at her wedding has shattered an age-old culture
For Priyanka Chopra, a Bollywood and Hollywood celebrity, a free-wheeling interview to Vogue US about her relationship with Nick Jonas helps in setting the record straight and owning her narrative.
She even went on to say that she was disappointed that her first date with Jonas ended in no kiss. A statement like that coming from the horse’s mouth and not from an unknown source leaves no room for tabloid sleaze and also shows that celebrity couples want to share their story, but at their own pace and space.
This strict guardedness also grants them the luxury of privacy, at times. One may argue that guests at celebrity weddings are bound by confidentiality clauses, making them liable for any information that is let out, but there’s more to it. A strict no cellphone rule, high walls of a palace, and tight security to check gate-crashers mean there is little scope for those pixilated blurry voyeuristic photos that end up embarrassing the celebrities.
Also read: Should Bollywood stars like Deepika-Ranveer and Priyanka have had more austere weddings?
All this image-crafting also has a monetary angle to it. Celebrity couples are turning their weddings into magazine exclusives. Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas are rumoured to have signed an Rs 18 crore deal for their wedding photos. Sonam Kapoor followed the trend early this year with Vogue India getting exclusive pictures from her wedding. Last year, there were reports that Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma would sell their wedding photos to an American magazine and the money raised would go to a charity.
Social media has changed the way how celebrities manage their life events. Most of them, like Ranveer-Deepika and Priyanka-Nick, prefer to share their official wedding photos with their legion of fans.
Also read: Unless Nick dresses up like Ranveer, we are not interested in Priyanka Chopra’s wedding
While we wait for the next round of carefully crafted photos from Priyanka-Nick wedding, one feels sorry for Bollywood stars like Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor Khan who tied the knot in the pre-Instagram frenzy era, and did not have the luxury of sharing official photos. For them, those grainy wedding images on Google search are here to stay.