Hariharan on song (top); the decor at Gandhi wedding. Pictures by Pradip Sanyal and Sanat Kumar Sinha

Calcutta is set to witness two weddings over the next two weeks, both in the Maheshwari clan of Marwaris and both novel in their own way. If one is standing out for extravagance, the other promises to set an example in benevolence.

A theme-a-night is the calling card for developer Kamal Gandhi. Over four nights, he is taking his guests to Rajasthan and even Rome. Hari Mohan Bangur, who runs Shree Cements, is giving away upwards of Rs 1.5 crore in charity on the eve of his son’s marriage.

Invitations for the wedding of Gandhi’s daughter Monalisa were sent out in wooden boxes with the guest’s name embossed. The words were inscribed on a metallic base. The other — of Bangur’s son Prashant — has a Ramananda Bandyopadhyay painting of a happy couple on paper.

At the Gandhis’, singer Hariharan was flown over on Wednesday to entertain about 800 guests at Spring Club, on the Bypass, of which Gandhi is a co-owner. Another property of his, Space Circle, hosted star anchor Sekhar Suman, who compered his elder daughter Sonali Mundra’s folk song recital on Thursday. Dancers from Rajasthan kept her company, amid fort-like decor.

A dolls’ house will be set up on Night III at Spring Club. “Children will dress up as Santa Claus, Mickey Mouse, a bar of chocolate, a butterfly and a dancing girl on a revolving stage,” says Mundra.

The big night is Sunday at Nalban, where the wedding fire gets lit surrounded by a Colosseum-like wall. A 70-ft platform will jut out into the waterbody where the bride and the groom would meet the 4,000 guests. The foodfront is as lavish, with cooks being brought over from Rajasthan, South India and Punjab. “Everything will be unique,” says Gandhi.

If the show is lavish at the Gandhis’, so are the cheques at the Bangurs’. On January 30, money for an ambulance will be donated to People’s Relief Committee of Chowringhee through Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. An ambulance will be added to Maniktala Chaltabagan Lohapatty Durgotsav Committee’s social work arsenal through the chief minister’s wife Meera Bhattacharjee the next day. Dum Dum Road Higher Secondary School get funded for an open-air stage. And if you have a proper toilet to go to the next time you are at Academy of Fine Arts, thank Bangur. Stars Welfare Society, an NGO running an orphanage in Tangra, will be doing the same.

“There will be simple Bengali food at the reception at my Alipore house on February 4. There will be neither imported flowers nor Continental cuisine,” smiled Bangur.

“Our community had a custom of donating a part of the wedding budget, the amount varying with one’s financial status. But that has made way for one-upmanship in extravaganza,” said Sundeep Bhutoria, secretary of Rajasthan Foundation.