Deepika Padukone Ranveer Singh wedding: News outlets forced to use venue pics amid absence of any real photos

In the absence of any real updates about the Ranveer Singh-Deepika Padukone wedding, news outlets have been forced to endlessly share pictures of the supposed venue — the Villa Del Balbianello at Lake Como, Italy — ad nauseum.

Leading media houses have been publishing photos of the Lake Como villa, and the CastaDiva Resort & Spa, where some of the wedding festivities are expected to take place, over and over.

Over the early hours of Wednesday, 14 November 2018, into the late afternoon, photos of the villa’s lakeside view, its banquet hall, its lush gardens, its sprawling terraces, its swimming pool, its gates, the driveway, its many sparkling chandeliers, its vine-covered pillars, have been shared by media houses.

Many of these photos have been accompanied by captions like “Still more photos of Deepika and Ranveer’s wedding venue”.

Experts told us unofficially that the Villa Del Balbianello had got more coverage over 12-14 November than its annual ad spend bought it.

A reporter with a national publication told Firstpost on condition of anonymity that her organisation had lined up 15 photos of the CastaDiva Resort & Spa for when the Villa Del Balbianello images ran out. She also hinted that short video clips from Casino Royale — among the films in which the latter property has featured — would be run by the organisation when the photos ran out.

Meanwhile, one intrepid reporter who had made their way to Lake Como, having spent three months’ salary on her airfare in the hopes of scoring a scoop, was turned away from the gates for behaving suspiciously. The reporter couldn’t fathom why she wasn’t allowed into the premises, but agreed that the slap bracelet she had put on, due to its resemblance to the special wrist band all of Ranveer and Deepika’s wedding guests were required to sport, may not have quite passed muster with the eagle-eyed security detail.

She did, however, take some exterior shots of the venue before being bundled back into her water taxi, only to find out later that those very images were also available on Instagram.

The tight security enforced at the venue — banning the guests’ use of cell phones, cameras, and all recording devices known to humankind, in addition to a strict clampdown on drones in the vicinity and passing boats — also created several obstacles for media houses wanting to bring their readership a ringside view of the wedding festivities.

One publication managed to get a blurred photo of two members of the wedding planners’ crew lifting a table and professed themselves elated. “It’s an actual table from the actual wedding venue,” an editor at the organisation exulted. “It’s more than anyone else has managed to get so far.”

Media outlets that couldn’t get pictures of the table have had to rely on day-old tweets from the wedding party.