14 DAY TRIAL // It’s difficult to determine the world’s fascination with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, today’s quintessential celebrity couple. However, that fascination exists and it reached alarming dimensions over the weekend, when the couple got married in an elaborate ceremony that has taken them among the most iconic places in Europe.
The press has been speculating for months about the date, the place and the ceremony itself, but nothing could have prepared the masses of fame-hungry people across the Globe for the coverage that followed in the wake of the event. It was very difficult to watch the news without stumbling on some report about the famous couple.
Now that Kim and Kanye have become officially Mr. and Mrs. West, it’s time to dissect the nuptial ceremony to see what the big deal was all about. Kanye was very secretive about his wedding from the get-go, something which Kim, who’s at her third ceremony, had to get used to.
Seeing as how both her previous weddings were not only filmed, photographed but also debated widely in the media, it was quite a change for her not to have cameras following her every step of the way this time around. But Kanye was adamant, this time, the world would be kept in the dark.
Except it didn’t stay in the dark. Thanks to numerous anonymous tips that could have very well come from the Kardashian clan itself, people heard rumors about the ceremony, and almost all of those rumors turned out to be true.
We knew, for example, that the Palace of Versailles had denied allowing the American celebrities to hold the ceremony there, we knew that Kanye had moved the wedding to Italy due to a French law that prevents people from getting married in country if they haven’t stayed for at least 40 days in France prior to the big event, and we also knew about the guest list, the invitations and the acts that would play during the wedding.
Some information transpired merely hours before the wedding, other was common knowledge months in advance. So now that Kanye and Kim are confirmed to have said their “I dos” at the Belvedere Fortress in Florence, Italy, the world is curious about how it all went down.
It was curiosity that drove the masses of people to crowd the convoy of cars that showed up at the Palace of Versailles on Friday and made them stare insistently from outside the tinted windows of the town cars and limousines that rolled slowly in. The same curiosity pushed people to gather by the thousands at the gates of the Italian fort and take photos, shout and wave as celebrities walked in.
Kim and Kanye were said to have chosen to have their nuptials in Europe, particularly because they wanted to avoid the paparazzi, but they didn’t bank on the curiosity of the common man who went out of his way to loiter around the places where the wedding was rumored to take place.
Drawn in by the promise of spotting their favorite stars, the crowds gathered patiently and screamed with anticipation every time they saw a famous face. Among those who attended Kim and Kanye’s Italian wedding were director Steve McQueen and Jaden Smith, son of actor Will Smith and Jada Pinkett.
The pre-wedding party at Versailles was fancier, with costumes and wigs, with a touching performance by Lana Del Rey, who relented to play at the wedding after she turned down Kanye for the engagement party, but only for a six-figure fee.
And speaking of millions, the total cost of the wedding is said to be running into the tens of millions of dollars, leading us to wonder who is going to foot the final bill. Speculation prior to the event said that that E! TV network, the one hosting the Kardashian reality show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, was going to pay for everything in exchange for exclusive TV rights, but later it was uncovered that the ceremony wouldn’t be recorded.
The theory now is that Kanye and Kim are going to cash in using sponsors and through the sale of exclusive photos of the ceremony to magazines like Vogue. So fret not, in the end, the couple will have ironically made money from their expensive wedding, earning more than they have spent and proving once more that famous people can make money out of just about everything.
So, as the couple heads out on their Italian honeymoon where they promised they were going to try for their second baby, we’re left to wonder as to what exactly caused us to be so addictively interested in their lives and daily doings, to the point that we sometimes forget our own lives.