Celebrities are known for all-out weddings. Why not? They have the money to pull them off and it’s sort-of become expected. However, not everyone bought into the expectation, with some famous couples keeping it very low-key over the years.
Without the glitz and glamour, weddings often become more about the people getting married than those attending.
Here are our favourite low-key weddings to inspire you.
Ed Sheeran and Cherry Seaborn
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The ‘Perfect’ singer married his longtime love Cherry Seaborn, though no one is quite sure when. The secret ceremony is reported to have been a small affair on Sheeran’s estate though no one has ever managed to confirm an exact date or details.
Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth
This spur-of-the-moment wedding took place on Cyrus’ Nashville farmhouse after a very tumultuous relationship between the two. Sadly, the amazing Christmastime intimate ceremony didn’t end in happily ever after as the two have since divorced.
Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio
It wasn’t a long wedding, much like the ceremony. The couple wed in Judge Charles Perry’s chambers in a ceremony that was kept secret till the last minute.
Beyoncé and Jay Z
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This mega-star couple tied the knot at Jay Z’s New York apartment with just a couple of friends in attendance. Very little has been revealed about this intimate ceremony. In the few snippets shared by the couple since, the ceremony looked lavish, even though it was small, because that’s what low-key is when you’re Beyonce.
Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin
This couple who are not unfamiliar with the spotlight had fans confused by first denying and then confirming their courthouse wedding. They have since splashed out with a major ceremony and even a Yotube series about their big nuptuals. But first they did it all by themselves.
Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart
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These two took it so low-key they didn’t even have a proper venue. They got married in a passageway of a farmhouse in Ohio.
Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig
James Bond might be lavish but the actor who plays him clearly is not. These two got married in a ceremony which only had four people in attendance. They have kept tight-lipped ever since, only announcing that the wedding had indeed happened.
Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas
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Who says you’ll regret getting married in Vegas? Again, this couple did hold a larger, more formal ceremony, but first they decided to get hitched in the City of Sin just before the Billboard Music Awards. Talk about spontaneous.
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Amanda Seyfried married her husband Thomas Sadoksi with nothing but an officiant and the countryside. The two took off to elope in an extremely private ceremony. No fuss at all.
Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard
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Another simple courthouse wedding. These two kept a super tight budget of $142 (around R2600) for their wedding with both in simple ensembles.
Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra
This short and quick ceremony between the iconic Frank Sinatra and angelic Mia Farrow was controversial because of their age gap, Sinatra was 30 years her senior. This could be why they opted for a private small ceremony at a friends instead of a big show.
Keira Knightley and James Righton
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These two married on a hilltop in Southern France. While they did have another ceremony with more guests, it was also a quiet affair.
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Since you’ve been given the honour of speaking at a loved ones wedding, you probably don’t want to dissapoint them. However, as much as a wedding toast is…
Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriquez, who previously said they were planning out various versions of their wedding, have decided to indefinitely postpone their big day.
The pair, who got engaged last year in March, are one of many couples who have had their wedding plans fail as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. They had apparently planned “the wedding of their dreams”, but of course, to ensure that people stay safe and follow social distancing rules, they have no choice but to relook their plans.
An insider told E! News that the wedding will not go on as planned. “They have been struggling for weeks over this decision, but with no return to normalcy in the near future, the couple felt postponing the wedding was the safest and smartest choice,” they said.
According to this insider, all guests have been notified that the wedding will no longer be taking place in late summer, as they expected.
The source also said that JLo and ARod had planned to say their “I-do’s” in Italy, and are hoping that they can eventually follow through with their dream wedding. They are already thinking of new dates, however, they do not see the nuptials taking place any time in the near future.
Image: Instagram / Jennifer Lopez
If you’re a colourful person, why not have your engagement ring to reflect that? Instead of opting for the standard diamond, go for something unique and unexpected. Colourful…
Some rules are meant to be broken. While tradition states that men are meant to propose to their future brides, many modern women are taking back the power and popping the question themselves.
Here are a few stars that popped the big question to their male partners:
Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor is no stranger to marriage. Out of her eight marriages, she popped the question once to British actor Michael Wilding.
Throughout the course of their five-year marriage, the pair had two children: Michael and Christopher. They divorced in 1957.
Kristen Bell
Kristen Bell and partner Dax Shepard would not marry until same-sex marriage was legal in the US. In 2013, the Supreme Court legalised same-sex marriage in California and Bell immediately took to Twitter to pop the question.
“.@daxshepard1 will you marry me? Xo #marriageequality #loveislove,” she tweeted.
“F*** yes!!!!!!!!!!!”, he replied excitedly.
Judge Judy
She’s a no-nonsense judge on our TV screens, so its no surprise Judy Sheindlin, more famously known as Judge Judy, would propose to her husband.
“I did propose to him,” Sheindlin told DuJour. “I said to him, ‘Where is this relationship going?’ And he tried to weasel out of it, with his, ‘Well, you know, why do we have to get married?’ Whatever. He finally capitulated. I told him to pick a date. He picked Flag Day.”
Britney Spears:
Spears randomly popped the question to baby daddy Kevin Federline while aboard a flight from Ireland to New York.
“I’d finished the European part of my tour and I was going home. I was ready to get back to the States. I was really happy. Kevin was with me, so I’d had a lot of fun on the tour,” she told People back in 2004. “We were a couple hours into the flight, and we’d been talking the whole time, stuff about life, wanting to have kids, the future and everything like that. It was an intimate conversation. And we’d always talked about how some people don’t have to get married when they’re in love. Then all of a sudden I said, ‘What if you want to get married?’ And I kind of went from there to asking him if he would marry me. I asked him… He said no because he thought it wasn’t the right way to do it,” she said.
Federline initially turned the proposal down, then asked Spears to marry him a few minutes later. The pair were married for 3 years before divorcing in 2007.
Pink
Pink had an exciting proposal up her sleeve for partner Carey Hart. Back in 2005, she asked Hart for his hand in marriage while he competed in a motorcross competition. As he entered his third lap, Pink held up a board that read “Will You Marry Me?”. When Hart failed to pull over and respond, Pink added the word “Serious!” to the bottom of the board. Finally, Hart hopped off his bike and said yes.
The pair married 6 months later and have been together ever since.
Diane von Furstenberg
Fashion designer and creator of the iconic wrap dress, Diane von Furstenberg asked now-husband American media mogul Barry Diller to marry her after turning down his many proposals.
“One year I didn’t know what to give him for his birthday, and I called him and said, ‘You know, if you want, for your birthday I’ll marry you,’ she told O Magazine. He replied with “Let me see if I can arrange it.”
The pair married in 2001.
Jennifer Hudson:
Jennifer Hudson was already engaged to WWE wrestler David Otunga, who proposed on her birthday, but she decided to reciprocate and ask him to marry her. Five months after their engagement, Hudson went down on one knee to propose to Otunga on his birthday. She didn’t come empty handed, her proposal featured a 5-carat engagement ring.
The pair were engaged for 10 years before splitting. They share a son together.
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When guests toast to the newlyweds, it should be in style. It’s easy to pour some bubbly in a glass, but where’s the fun in that? Since signature…
Love looked a whole lot different back in the 1950s. Before Tinder and Instagram DMs, writing letters was the original form of romantic correspondence. This couple accidentally became penpals, and started a great love story in the process.
The year was 1957. A seaman on the HMS Ganges in Ipswich posted an advertisement in a newspaper looking for a penpal, which a then 15-year-old Shirley Kerrigan responded to. This advertisement turned out to be quite popular. The seaman received many messages, so he passed a few of them on to his fellow shipmate.
This is how Shirley’s letter ended up in the hands of 19-year-old Jack Godley. Crazily enough, Shirley lived only 5 minutes away from Jack’s family in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.
That first initial letter turned into many. A year later, the pair finally met when Jack returned home on leave. They quickly fell in love and married on April 30, 1960.
Fast forward to 2020 and the couple are now celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. Shirley, 78, and Jack, 82, have five children together, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. All this from a simple letter.
Shirley believes their love was meant to be.
She said: “I’m glad it ended up with him. I do think it was fate. The other sailor got a sack full and he said ‘here you go Ginge’ – that’s what they called Jack in the navy. He said, ‘there’s one from Sheffield you can have that one'”.
Their secret to a long-lasting marriage? Celebrating differences.
“Well we’re opposites aren’t we, me and Shirley. Opposites attract. That’s why we have lasted,” said Jack. “Well, that and doing what I am told.”
While they can’t go out and celebrate their milestone anniversary due to the lockdown, the pair plan to have a special day when the pandemic is over and it’s safe to go outside again.
Feature image: Unsplash