Why Hollywood stars love secret, low-key weddings
Amy Schumer and chef Chris Fischer kept their 2018 nuptials under the radar and fuss-free. Photo: Instagram
With the groom in sneakers and the bride in a non-custom Vivienne Westwood dress, Liam Hemsworth and Miley Cyrus cut their wedding cake on Sunday watched by a handful of family and friends.
The mother of the bride wore jeans. Guests drank from cans and did shots. The only decorations at the low-key private ceremony seemed to be a garland of flowers and bobbing ‘Mr and Mrs’ balloons.
There was no band, no 10-strong wedding party of groomsmen and bridesmaids, no doves. Welcome to Hollywood’s new favourite type of wedding: The cheap and cheerful backyard or living room job.
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While vulgar Kim Kardashian and Kanye West extravaganzas (Versailles! Florence!) and Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas days-long events get headlines, they’re a rarity among the people who can actually afford to push the boat out.
In Australia, the average wedding costs $36,200 according to government site moneysmart.gov.au. Venue hire, including food and alcohol, is the highest cost, with wedding dresses also up there.
For most of us, that’s a lot of money for a party.
But average punters see the day as their chance to be a star.
Turn up to a modern wedding and there’s likely to be drones, three-hour breaks between service and reception for staged photos, dress changes, giant cakes and showy party gimmicks.
“The whole thing has got rather out of hand,” Country Life editor Mark Hedges said last year of the trend towards grotesque suburban weddings.
Not in Hollywood, where Cyrus and Hemsworth are just the latest stars to choose a private, no-fuss big day.
When model Miranda Kerr married Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel – the youngest billionaire in the world – she said her May 2017 vows in the backyard of the couple’s Los Angeles home.
There were just 40 guests and the bride (whose concession to luxury was a Dior gown) did her own makeup and made dinner for her new husband – roast chicken with turmeric.
Model businesswoman Lara Bingle also took to the kitchen when she married Avatar star Sam Worthington at a Melbourne home in December 2014.
“We just had 10 people in a house we rented. I cooked lunch,” Bingle said.
Before her top-secret 2016 wedding to producer Tom Ackerley, Oscar nominee Margot Robbie held her hen’s party at a Gold Coast bakery. On the big day, she wore her mother’s vintage wedding dress and 50 guests had pizza and bowls of Coco Pops by the pool at a hired house.
She released just one photo on social media:
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Other fans of the backyard bash? Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux in August 2015 (70 guests and Sia as singer), Drew Barrymore and Will Kopelman in 2012, and Benji Madden and Cameron Diaz (who said their 2015 vows in her Beverly Hills living room.)
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt also had a home turf advantage, saying “I do” at the church on their French estate in front of just their six children and a handful of witnesses.
After swapping vows and rings bought off Etsy for $268 in July 2015, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher drove off in a camper van for a road trip honeymoon.
Jay Z and Beyonce married in his New York apartment in 2008 – and despite their high social media profile, have kept all photos private for 10 years.
Her hair in a ponytail and wearing a jumper and skirt over shorts, actor Olivia Palermo married model Johannes Huebl in a New York park in 2014 with two friends present.
Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig hadn’t even gone public as a couple when they secretly wed in New York in 2011. Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander married quietly in Ibiza in October 2017, and Amy Schumer and chef Chris Fischer’s 2018 beach wedding photos showed guests in flannelette shirts.
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When Mamma Mia’s Amanda Seyfried and Thomas Sadoski eloped last March, “We took off into the country with an officiant and just the two of us,” the groom said.
“It was everything that it should be. It was just the two of us talking to each other.”
Actress Emily Ratajkowski took her social media followers by surprise in February when she married model Sebastian Bear-McClard in a courthouse, wearing a $353 Zara mustard suit and black hat.
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But the award for the cheapest, least Hollywood showbiz wedding goes to Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, who tied the knot in October 2013.
Their wedding was so low-maintenance Shepard said it only cost $201.
As he said on Jimmy Kimmel Live, “It was just Kristen and I at this lonely courthouse so they brought us this cake afterwards.”
