14 DAY TRIAL // Word has it that E! is picking up the bill on Kim Kardashian’s eccentric wedding ceremony to rapper Kanye West, but we’d wager she and her fiancé are paying out of their own pocket for the wedding favors, which, according to a new report, total a whopping $25 million (€18.1 million).
That’s a huge fortune to spend on 200 guests, but reports cited by Yahoo! Shine claim that the lovebirds are determined to go all out to offer their A-list guests the time of their life – and memories to go with it.
So, as is customary in some parts of the world (and certainly in the Kardashian universe), guests at the wedding will receive a gift bag. Unlike in most parts of the world, this one will be worth an estimated $125,000 (€90,750) and will include anything from spa treatments to perfumes and handmade trinkets.
“This is what it will reportedly get guests: $500 [€363] bottles of Bollinger champagne, $200 [€145] Creme de la Mer products, handmade souvenir trinkets with Kim and Kanye's initials etched in Swarovski crystals, bottles of scents from local perfumeries, and $250 [€181.2] vouchers for treatments at the hotel's spa,” the aforementioned e-zine says.
Kim and Kanye have already sent out the invitations, which set them back another $1,000 (€727), an amount not factored into the estimated expenditure on the guests.
“Kim and Kanye wanted the invites to be as lavish as possible, and commissioned a couture designer to create gold silk boxes containing a photo album of their fairytale romance and a silk invite etched in real gold leaf with a clasp of natural pearls,” says an insider.
However, there is a cloud on Kim’s wedding horizon and that’s in the fact that many of the people she counted on being at the wedding have already declined her invitation. Speculation online claims that they refused to attend because Kim will have the E! cameras there, to shoot another wedding special. After all, if they’re paying for the wedding, they might as well have unrestricted access to everything.
Beyonce and Jay Z won’t come, even though Jay is one of Kanye’s best friends and a longtime collaborator. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have also refused to attend because they hate the idea of reality television and feel it will cheapen the event, so they want no part of it.
Oprah Winfrey, Anna Wintour, Prince, Robin Thicke, Jonah Hill, Jared Leto, Karl Lagerfeld, and even Barack and Michelle Obama were (allegedly) invited and refused. They probably had no idea of the kind of money Kim would spend on wedding favors.