It was a fairytale affair when the tennis star Serena Williams wedded Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Serena didn’t use Reddit, and Alexis wasn’t really into tennis, but we think it’s safe to say this is a star combo. The two met in Rome while lodging at the same hotel and got engaged a year later at that very hotel.
A year after that, the two wed in New Orleans in 2017 at the Contemporary Art Centre. The wedding reception was more of a ball, in the Beauty and the Beast-themed hall. The space was bedecked with chandeliers, abundant flowers, long tables draped in lamé fabric, trophy-type place cards, and of course, royal throne-like seating for the newlywed couple. Apparently, the wedding racked up close to $4 million to run.
Humbly Lavish
American sweetheart Anne Hathaway married jewelry designer Adam Shulman in 2012 at a private estate on the rugged coastline just south of San Fransisco. A relatively small affair, with only about 180 guests (we said relatively), surrounded by wilderness in Big Sur, California (Fun fact: Natalie Portman also got married in the Big Sur region).
Red carpet fans and movie lovers may have assumed that she would wear Prada, but in fact, it was a vintage-inspired Valentino gown, after all. The decor of the outdoor ceremony was inspired by nature and featured plenty of branches and outdoorsy ornaments. The affair cost about $1 million, with $100,000 of that going solely towards flowers.
Oh, to Be an Heiress
The heiress Ivy Getty, the great-granddaughter of billionaire oil magnate J. Paul Getty, wedded Tobias Engel, a photographer, in a perfect matrimony held in San Francisco's City Hall, in the fall of 2021. Coming from an oil tycoon family, it's understandable how this precious granddaughter secured herself a wedding valued at a couple of million dollars. It is well known that the town hall in SF is an absolute treasure that celebrates and embodies the American golden age of the late 1800s.
With bronze-coated gates and staircases, it's tough to match the elegance of this venue. The bride's dress was an absolute jaw-dropper and featured four coatings as well as actual fragments of a shattered mirror — a totally vintage masterpiece of a dress to match their 1960s wedding theme.
Try, Try Again
So nice they did it twice! In the summer of 2022, Bennifer (Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez) got married two times. The first time was a private elopement in the "little chapel" of Las Vegas (classic). The second ceremony was an absolute showstopper extravaganza on Affleck's sprawling Georgia estate.
The estate has previously been described as: "a remarkable re-creation of a Southern antebellum Greek Revival plantation home." The wedding itself may have not been too fancy, but Affleck had already bought the 87-acre hideaway in 2003 for a hefty $7.1 million. The wedding weekend commenced with a rehearsal dinner on Friday night, followed by the ceremony on Saturday, including only a few close-knit loved ones, and ended with a BBQ on Sunday.
The Balds and the Biebs
The world can't seem to get enough of a blockbuster wedding, can it? Nope! And it was no different when Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin wedded in 2019. The two did an initial private ceremony in a courthouse in Manhattan the previous year, but it was the lavish Montage Palmetto Bluff hotel ceremony in South Carolina that had everyone talking for weeks! The event cost the couple $1.3 million.
The nuptials ensued in the Somerset Chapel, followed by the reception in the Wilson Ballroom. It was important for both lovers to get married in a religious church ceremony, as they are both Christians. The venue is centered on a nature preserve overlooking the May River — an astounding setting for any wedding!