14 DAY TRIAL // Courtney Stodden’s initial claim to fame was the fact that she married a guy who was older than her father, 51-year-old actor Doug Hutchinson, when she had just turned 16. The ceremony took place in 2011 in Las Vegas, and it obviously needed her parents’ approval.
Now that she’s 21 and she knows that Doug is the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with, Courtney is planning a ceremony in which they will be renewing their vows. It won’t be in Vegas, she tells Us Magazine in a new interview.
A Cinderella “thing,” not planned by her parents
Because the first wedding ceremony was a Vegas quickie that her mother had put together, for this new ceremony, which will be taking place next year, Courtney wants to go all out.
“I can finally [plan] it myself, you know, because I was 16 and I had to have it signed [by my parents], so I think finally not having any parents involved and just doing it myself is going to be great,” she says. “I want to do a big thing, because, you know, our first time around we married in Las Vegas next to a Chevron - it was not that glamorous! So I really want to play it up. I want to do the whole Cinderella thing.”
She’s thinking of getting a mermaid-style wedding dress and to give the entire ceremony an old Hollywood glamorous feel. Her obsession with Marilyn Monroe is well documented in the media, so this isn’t really too much of a surprise.
Because Courtney’s career never really took off the way she imagined it would, it’s very likely for the wedding vows renewal ceremony to be featured on some TV special or at least in one of the glossies she usually works with.
Teen Bride and a love story in Tinseltown
When she married Doug, Courtney became known as “Teen Bride” and at the same time, her mother and former manager, who had signed off on the union, became one of the most controversial D-list celebrities of the moment.
Courtney and Doug managed to monetize on the media frenzy, doing several TV appearances and even more print interviews, but the attention eventually died down.
Their marriage also hit a road block in late 2013, and Courtney informed Doug that she wanted to be with guys her own age for a change. They separated (but continued to live under the same roof) and she ventured out into the world to see what dating was like, since she had obviously not had a chance to do so before marriage.
They reconciled in the summer of 2014.