I never thought I would find inspiration for a column while visiting a doctor. While waiting for an appointment that was already 40 minutes late, I joined my fellow patients in browsing the office’s magazine rack. It was oddly calm, flipping through the pages of a real magazine, as opposed to the usual scrolling on a phone or tablet. It helped better than my blood pressure medication and almost made me forget how late my doctor was.

The inspiration came as I turned a page in the magazine’s “News in Brief” section, which highlighted a number of touching stories or significant milestones from home and abroad.

The story was only three paragraphs long and told an interesting tale of a wedding in India. Indian mogul Mukesh Ambani is the chairman of India’s largest conglomerate. It’s called Reliance Industries. I have no idea what it does, only that it sounds like the kind of generic names given to conglomerates run by supervillains in summer blockbusters. I’m sure Mr. Ambani doesn’t live in a secret hideout in the Himalayas and has no plans to conquer the world, but whatever he does, he seems to be pretty good at it, as the article estimates his net worth at $122 billion.

But it wasn’t the real story. The marriage of his son Anant to a young woman who was considered a pharmaceutical heiress was the impetus that earned them the three paragraphs in Time magazine.

I know F. Scott Fitzgerald told us that “the rich are different,” but I had no idea how different. The wedding of Anant and his heiress lasted several days, and the final bill came to around $600 million.

The description of the event or events made the most lavish New York party J. Gatsby ever threw look like a pancake breakfast in the basement of a church, thrown by the Legion of Mary to buy fresh altar linens. The guest list for this nine-figure extravaganza included Kim Kardashian, John Cena and two former British prime ministers, Boris Johnson and Tony Blair, as well as several hundred more of the couple’s closest friends. Pre-wedding galas were attended by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.

Rhianna, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Andrea Bocelli provided the entertainment. When I finished the last paragraph I thought: So what? My wife and I had the Beatles play at our wedding reception, but on cassette.

When you read about such wealth in a country where there is so much poverty, it is easy to get on a high horse and condemn such extravagance. That was my first inclination, anyway.

Thanks to the amount of time my doctor gave me due to his chronic unpunctuality, my good angels took me in hand and brought me to a different kind of wedding.

The author’s parents on their wedding day in 1938. (Submitted photo)

What the Time magazine clipping describes is an exaggerated depiction of a trend that is becoming increasingly popular in the wedding industry: the “destination wedding.” When my own parents got married, the concept was completely foreign to most people. It was certainly foreign to them. There was no professional photographer at my parents’ wedding; my mother had no wedding dress, just a simple outfit that she paid for with money she earned at a diner. My father didn’t even rent a tuxedo, just a simple suit that he wore on special occasions. There’s a lot I don’t know about my parents’ wedding day—I wasn’t there, after all—but I assure you the whole thing was well under the $600 million mark.

And while Mr. and Mrs. Ambani probably spent their honeymoon on the back of an elegantly decorated elephant hunting tigers or staying in a luxurious vacation villa where the average person could not afford maid quarters, my mother and father spent their honeymoon in Van Nuys.

My parents’ wedding wouldn’t have made the local newspaper, let alone a national magazine, but I would argue that on December 17, 1938, they embarked on the ultimate “destination wedding.”

As they knelt before the altar in the same church where they would baptize all their children, they began a journey that would last four decades. It was a journey filled with joy, sadness, triumph, and tragedy. And the final destination that my parents achieved in their lifetime after their sacramental union, I believe with all my heart, could not be bought at any price – especially not $600 million.