Bennifer’s £77 bash is a good sign their marriage will last till death do them part
GIVEN that they only spent £77 on their Vegas nuptials, the marriage of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez is likely to last longer than, say, that of Brooklyn Beckham and new wife Nicola Peltz, whose recent wedding cost millions.
I say this not as “Mystic Moore” but as a science-based prediction taken from the last study available on such weighty matters.
Namely the survey undertaken by the Marriage Foundation earlier this year which discovered that ten per cent of marriages that started with a wedding costing more than £20,000 broke down within three years — twice the overall divorce rate of five per cent in that time.
Of course, every one should have the wedding they wish to within the means at their disposal, but in a global cost-of- living crisis “Ben- nifer” perhaps felt it would be a little tone deaf to splash the cash on wedding number four for her, second for him.
So instead, they queued up with four other couples to get their licence and, along with the five kids they have between them, headed off to Vegas’s famous Little White Chapel just after midnight.
They didn’t even pay for an Elvis impersonator because, according to J-Lo, “that cost extra and he was in bed”.
READ MORE ON JENNIFER LOPEZ
What a far cry from 2003, when they were first engaged and planned a 400-guest extravaganza (called off just hours before the ceremony) with a diamond ring the size of a small planet and three decoy brides.
This time, Ben changed in to his tux in the loo, Jen wore a movie dress she’s had for ages, and the pair of them look wonderfully content and carefree — perhaps liberated from all the fuss and attention that usually goes hand in hand with high-profile weddings.
Brooklyn and Nicola seem happy.
But would they have been less so if they’d popped to Vegas for a quickie and donated some of the reported £5million cost of their lavish wedding to a good cause instead?
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And what about Kim Kardashian’s wedding to Kris Humphries that cost around $10million and lasted 72 days?
Or her later wedding to Kanye West that reportedly notched up a $12million bill and is now over?
Petra Ecclestone’s first marriage to James Stunt cost around £12million and ended in acrimony.
Last weekend, she married Sam Palmer in a “low-key” ceremony costing around £1million.
Cripes.
Perhaps if you’re an Ecclestone, that’s considered cheap.
Of course, there are plenty of lavish celebrity weddings where the couples are still together.
But cost aside, I wonder how many of them look at the simplicity of Bennifer’s big day and wish they’d done the same?
No fuss, no guests fretting about the table plan, no tricky relatives to deal with, no giant screens needed to shield the bride from prying eyes, no paparazzi helicopters circling overhead, no temperamental dress designer barking orders at flustered assistants, no vegetarian/vegan options to worry about and no giant rock you worry about being mugged for.
Just you two, your kids, and a cheap and cheerful ceremony with the minimum of fuss. Heaven.
Better still, the stats for it lasting the course are stacked in your favour.
'Words fail me'
A REPORT by the Police Foundation says that “low-risk” of-fenders who view child sexual abuse images online should be given conditional cautions rather than be prosecuted.
Words fail me.
Has anyone told them that those child abuse images online only exist because these sick voyeurs are creating the demand for them?
VILLA’S MAN BABIES
JUST to be clear, it wasn’t his ADHD that made Love Island contestant Jacques O’Neill behave like a petulant man-child towards Paige Thorne.
It was simply because he’s a petulant man-child. End of.
And fellow Islander Luca Bish, who doesn’t have ADHD, isn’t far behind him.
Ice dream
ACCORDING to one report, the “must have” accessory right now is a £3,000 “ice bath” for the back garden.
Right now, I can see the point.
But the second we’re all back to moaning how woeful the UK weather is, it will become the world’s most expensive bird bath full of algae, brown leaves and a few dead flies.
A COVER S-TORY?
PM contenders Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss pulled out of a proposed third TV debate scheduled for last night, reportedly because they fear Tory in-fighting could damage the party.
Or, given that they’ve already laid out their stalls twice before and the temperature gauge was nudging 40 degrees, did they correctly assume that no one except political geeks would be watching?
PS. Like everyone else, I’ll engage with it when it reaches the final two today and gets interesting.
'Age-old technique'
M&S is hoping to reduce household waste by removing best-before dates on hundreds of fresh products.
Quite right too. I’ve ignored them for years, preferring to use an age-old technique for determining whether food is still edible or not.
It’s called a nose.
BEAUTY AND BRAINS – GANDY IS MORE THAN JUST EYE CANDY
MALE supermodel David Gandy says the temptations to make easy money are everywhere but advises that: “Saying no to something is as important as saying yes.”
He adds: “Some offers I get are silly.
“Like ice cream, sweets or fizzy drinks ads, which I won’t do because I’m working with Jamie Oliver against obesity, so that would be wrong.
“And I turn down acting roles because . . . I can’t act.”
So, not only gorgeous and successful, but also principled, down to earth and realistic. Be still my beating heart.
'Far too much sex'
AUTHOR Jilly Cooper has re-read her hit book Riders and says there’s “far too much sex” in it.
Which is precisely why it sold 67squillion copies worldwide.
DANCE FUN, NO PHONES
ATTEND any large concert these days and you’ll see thousands of people viewing it through their phone screens as they record every song or utterance.
Which is why, last week, my outing with two friends to Secret Cinema’s Dirty Dancing event proved be to especially magical.
For not only were we propelled back to the 1950s via an expertly built replica of Kellerman’s holiday camp and its hideaway “Dirty Dancing” club, but the use of mobile phones was banned.
Consequently, hundreds of young people were “in the moment” and looked all the happier for it.
'Feeling flirty'
ACCORDING to emoji experts (other professions are available) the winking smiley face isn’t, as baby boomers might view it, a cheeky gesture that shows you’re joking.
For the Gen Z generation, it means “feeling flirty”.
Hence, one assumes, the “Twitter storm” (yawn) over Dominic Raab’s wink at Angela Rayner during PMQs while the rest of the country rolled their eyes and wondered what all the fuss was about.
'No respect'
ACTOR Mickey Rourke says of Tom Cruise: “The guy’s been doing the same effing part for 35 years. I got no respect for that.”
Given that Cruise’s latest movie Top Gun: Maverick has now taken more than £1billion at the box office, one imagines he’s not losing too much sleep over this churlishly narrow view of his talents.
HARRY’S BLUES
THEY say a picture can paint a thousand words.
In which case, this one of Harry and Meghan at a Mandela Day event paints the impression that she knows where the cameras are, while her husband stares miserably in to the middle distance seemingly oblivious to his surroundings.
It’s what’s known as “a brown study”. Or, as seems here, a distinctly blue one.