Vanamie Art and Info Blog

Most Expensive Celebrity Weddings

Celebrities have been known to go all-out for exotic vacations and expensive nights on the town, and it seems that weddings are no exception. Rumor has it that Salma Hayek was set to spend $3.5 million for her nuptials before she called it off. Wondering what other celebs have spent on their big day? Lucky for you, we found a Forbes list of the most expensive Hollywood weddings! Check it out.
Elizabeth Hurley & Arun Nayar: $2.5 Million

Why have one wedding when you can have two? That’s what model-actress Elizabeth Hurley did when she married Indian businessman Arun Nayar in March 2007. Three hundred guests (including designer Valentino and singer Elton John) attended the first ceremony at the medieval Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, England. Next, the couple went to India for a Hindu ceremony at Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur where the couple stayed at the Maharani suites that cost upward of $10,000 per night. The bride and groom eventually logged in eight days of celebration.



Christina Aguilera & Jordan Bratman: $2 Million

When pop diva Christina Aguilera married music executive Jordan Bratman in November 2005, the power couple decided to get away from the limelight by throwing a three-day event in California wine country. On the final night, guests met at the Staglin Family Vineyard for a winter-themed wedding. The couple said their “I dos” in a pew-filled, stained-glass Castilian castle that was built over a swimming pool. Afterward, everyone made their way to the tented reception. Inside, elaborate decorations included silver drapery, a sparkling chandelier and white roses.
Catherine Zeta-Jones & Michael Douglas: $1.5 Million

This Oscar-winning couple spared no expense for their elaborate New York wedding in 2000. Guests received special hologram-embedded invitations that they needed for access to the event space at New York’s Plaza Hotel—talk about exclusive! Sean Connery and Jack Nicholson were two of the lucky few that made it inside. Catherine wore an antique Chantilly lace gown by Christian Lacroix that she accessorized with a tiara. Later in the evening, guests looked on as Grammy-winner Bonnie Tyler wowed the audience with a private performance.

The Material Girl went all-out when she married British film director Guy Ritchie in December 2000. The pop icon decided on a royal event at Scotland’s Skibo Castle—the couple booked all 21 of the estate’s rooms for guests, who included Sting and Gwyneth Paltrow. Madonna accessorized her strapless, cream, silk gown by Stella McCartney with a 1910 diamond tiara (once worn by Monaco’s Princess Grace) while Guy wore a customary Scottish kilt. Following the ceremony and dinner, everyone headed down to the castle’s basement to dance the night away.
Melania Knauss & Donald Trump: $1 Million

In January 2005, real estate mogul Donald Trump married model Melania Knauss in an extravagant Florida wedding. The affair began with the bride walking down the aisle in a strapless Christian Dior masterpiece complete with 300 feet of satin beaded with 1,500 crystals and ending with an exquisite 50-pound, 13-foot train. Following the ceremony, guests gathered at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate where they enjoyed the sounds of a 36-piece orchestra during an elaborate meal catered by celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten.


The list of the top 20 wedding dresses
1 Grace Kelly (April 1956)
2 Nicole Kidman (June 2006)
3 Jackie Onassis (September 1953)
4 Pink (January 2006)
5 Diana, Princess of Wales (July 1981)
6 Dita Von Teese (December 2005)
7 Victoria Beckham (July 1999)
8 Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy (July 1996)
9 Jordan (September 2005)
10 Jemma Kidd (June 2005)
11 Avril Lavigne (July 2006)
12 Bianca Jagger (May 1971)
13 Renee Zellweger (May 2005)
14 Katy England (July 2006)
15 Ines Sastre (April 2006)
16 Marilyn Monroe (January 1954)
17 Gwen Stefani (September 2002)
18 Liberty Ross (September 2003)
19 Sarah Armstrong-Jones (July 1994)
20 Jodie Kidd (October 2005)

These color photographs were all taken in the Russian Empire between 1909 and 1918.





Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii was a Russian photographer born in 1863. After studying chemistry with Mendeleev and later with Adolf Miethe - one of the crucial figures in the invention of color photography - Gorskii started developing his own techniques and processes of color photography, giving it a quality that even impresses even today.
In 1909, he convinced the tsar Nicolas II to send him on a trip across the Russian Empire, to document its impressive diversity. It was a 10-year project, during which Gorskii took over 10 000 pictures, and it ended up outlasting the tsar himself, and the Empire for that matter, as the October Revolution swept away the monarchy. In 1918, he emigrated to Paris, where he died in 1944.

The image archive of 1902 negatives which were left was bought by the Library of Congress a few years after the artist's death, and was put online in 2004. You can find it here.




Prokuda-Gorskii's most famous photo is of Leo Tolstoy, dated 1908.


But I prefer this monumental, megalomaniac and modest project of documenting Imperial Russia, which at the time was larger than the USSR ever came to be. The diversity of the people, and the shockingly modern colors of their portraits, make them impossible to forget. They are our contemporaries, now that they stopped hiding between the unfocused black-and-whiteness.
They are almost too present.

Austrian (probably meaning also Polish and of other origins) prisoners somewhere in Russia. It's really worth seeing a high-resolution image.


Here he is, Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii. In a landscape that is (eerily?) ours.
PS. The amazing color bars that appear on some of the pictures are the result of Prokudin-Gorskii's ingenious process, which consisted in taking three subsequent, monochromatic photographs, one with a green filter, one with blue and one with red. He then superimposed the three projections using lamps with a corresponding filter system. I adore these frames, unfortunately some of the images needed additional computer editing (by the Library of Congress) and in this version were cropped.
You can find an extended biography of Gorskii here.

Britney The Raunchy - Unseen Images Of Pop Star Goes Topless On Video

After shaving all her hair off, getting hitched for 55 hours in Las Vegas and kissing Madonna in front of millions there would seem to be little more that Britney Spears can do to shock her fans.
However, the singer has managed it - judging by these new pictures of her performing a raunchy topless poledance routine for a video.
Miss Spears, now 27, peeled off down to a pair of rose petals for the single Gimme More in 2007, although the scenes were considered too adult for the final cut.


Striptease: Britney Spears has only a pair of rose petals to cover her breasts in the Gimme More video, but our airbrushers have further protected her modesty.