Celebrity Weddings
Around $72 billion dollars are spent each year on weddings in the United States. It is a monster industry spanning retail, vendors, magazines, and television. For couples in love, the wedding is a dream come true, an opportunity to celebrate their love in a beautiful and meaningful way. When it comes to the big day, celebrities bar no expense, shocking average Americans and making them dream of their own wedding day. Celebrity engagements and weddings are the subject of much media attention, often capturing more of an audience than a President's speech or news coverage on the latest national crisis or world catastrophe.
But, why? The public is fascinated with weddings, and the media is well aware of that fact. That is why the media is excellent at covering all the details of big celebrity weddings. Media coverage feeds the industry, and continues to entertain audiences of wedding lovers and brides-to-be.
As we look forward to celebrity weddings in 2011, all attention is on the upcoming union of Prince William and his long-term girlfriend Kate Middleton. Ever since their engagement was announced on November 16, 2010, people have been eager to find out more. One of the first items of interest was the engagement ring. As pictures confirm, the engagement ring given to Kate was the stunning 18-carat sapphire engagement ring of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Always hungry for more information, the media has been speculating about key details of the royal wedding, including which designer will be asked to make the wedding gown, what bridal jewelry will Kate wear, and who will be on the guest list. While some things will remain secret until the wedding day, some information has already been revealed. In early January 2011, an official statement was made announcing that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will marry William and Kate at 11 AM on April 29, 2011 in Westminster Abbey, London. After the ceremony, the couple will leave in a horse-drawn carriage, traveling through Parliament Square, Whitehall, Horse Guards Parade and the Mall to Buckingham Palace, where they will attend a reception hosted by Queen Elizabeth II, William's grandmother. While at Buckingham Palace, the couple will step out onto the balcony for a brief public appearance. This is the same balcony where William's parents, Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, kissed after their 1981 wedding.
The wedding of Prince William and Kate is expected to draw a huge global audience via television and the Internet. Many suspect it will be the most expensive celebrity wedding of all time, costing the British taxpayers an estimated $20 million dollars or more. It is quite amazing that this will probably be the most watched wedding since the marriage of William's parents, Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles, 30 years ago on July 29, 1981. The fairy tale wedding of Prince Charles and Diana was watched by a worldwide audience of about one billion and can be considered the beginning of an era. Celebrity weddings were extravagant 20 years ago, but today they have exceeded all precedents and expectations.
In looking back to brides and grooms of 2010, in what many call America's royal wedding, Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, married her long-time boyfriend, Marc Mezvinsky. The 6 PM ceremony was held on the lawn overlooking the Hudson River at Astor Court in Rhinebeck, New York on July 31, 2010. The bride wore a Vera Wang ivory strapless gown, accented with an embellished belt and long traditional tulle veil also by the designer. She held a bouquet of gardenias by florist Jeff Leatham. The groom wore a custom-made wool and mohair tuxedo by Burberry with a freesia boutonniere. The 12 bridesmaids wore Vera Wang lavender chiffon strapless gowns with a contrasting plum bow. A reception was held in a covered tent erected for the occasion following the wedding ceremony. The dinner menu was prepared by St. Regis Hotels and Resorts, followed by dessert from La Tulipe, an eleven-tiered 500 pound gluten free (for the gluten-intolerant bride) chocolate cake covered with 1,000 edible white sugar flowers.
While the cost of these weddings is exorbitantly high, rather than criticize celebrities for their extravagant ways, the public is fascinated, and continues to dig through magazines and search online gossip sites for all the glamorous details.
It is not just traditional magazines, entertainment news, or the dozens of wedding specific publications like Brides and Weddings that are in the big wedding business, television and movies have really capitalized on the public and media's fascination with weddings. Any flip through the cable channels is sure to reveal more than one wedding related show, perhaps WE tv's My Fair Wedding or In Style's Celebrity Weddings special. The shows have a steady audience of brides-to-be and wedding lovers. Even the TODAY show on NBC, which usually is America's primary source for morning news and a world leader in news coverage, gets more viewers when the show is presenting its annual "TODAY Throws a Wedding," where a lucky couple is chosen to have America vote on the details of their wedding and plan it from start to finish. Plus, once the wedding is planned, it is a nationally televised event, where people are setting their alarms to wake up early to catch the TODAY show wedding. The media has found a real audience in the timeless events of weddings.
More and more celebrity weddings will capture the attention of the public and media, as they continue to reach all new heights of extravagance and grandeur. While some celebrities and public figures choose to keep their nuptials private or secret, there are still going to be some couples looking for the limelight on their big day, feeding a wedding crazed public.
