The rise of the celebrity 'entrée wedding'.

Listen to this story being read by Chelsea McLaughlin, here.

Full disclosure: reading this story may make you hungry. Apologies in advance.

The topic at hand is 'entrée weddings', which does not mean the little meal guests eat before the bigger meal at a wedding. It's more... metaphorical, about a specific, very Hollywood way of celebrating marriage.

It was coined by The Spill co-host Melissa Mason while discussing the rumoured second wedding of Bennifer, and I am about to hammer the analogy into the ground!

So, what does it mean? For the rich and famous, the entrée wedding is essentially a smaller, intimate or low-key wedding. The kind of wedding that the anti-wedding trend everyone's been raving about describes.

For most of us, a celebrity entrée would be the full degustation menu, plus a cheeky cocktail or two.

But for them, it's just a starter.

Then comes the main course: a bigger, fancier, presumably MUCH more expensive second wedding with all the trimmings and famous guests you could want. 

The honeymoon is obviously dessert. 

Yeah, sorry. 

I'll temper down on the food analogies for now and get into some examples.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez.

Image: OnTheLo. 

When Bennifer married in Vegas in July, we all thought: 'huh'.

Their wedding ceremony - and the story JLo (now JAf? Have we figured that out?) shared in her newsletter couldn't have been more chill.

Ben got dressed in a public toilet beforehand, while JLo wore an understated dress from an old film.

"Last night we flew to Vegas, stood in line for a license with four other couples, all making the same journey to the wedding capital of the world," she wrote.

"So with the best witnesses you could ever imagine, a dress from an old movie and a jacket from Ben's closet, we read our own vows in the little chapel and gave one another the rings we'll wear for the rest of our lives."

Image: OnTheLo. 

Sweet, yet understated.

However, this is Jenny from the Block we are talking about! And even though we aren't meant to be fooled by them, SHE STILL HAS ROCKS. 

What I'm trying to say is... JLo's not really known for being low key. So news that they have planned another, much flashier wedding at Ben's fancy home in Riceboro, Georgia, makes sense.

Also, the Riceboro house is that same house they were supposed to get married at in 2003 before they called off their first engagement. 

Cuuute.

Details are scarce at this stage, but we know this one is going to be a bit more glam than that Vegas drive through.

Firstly, IT'S THREE DAYS LONG. 

According to Page Six, the festivities will kick off with a rehearsal dinner on Friday, August 19, followed by a ceremony on Saturday and a barbecue on Sunday. 

JLo is expected to wear a custom couture Ralph Lauren dress, and the guest list supposedly includes Matt Damon, Jimmy Kimmel, and Casey Affleck.

The main course we know JLo's always wanted.

Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker.

Image: Instagram/@kourtneykardash. 

Okay, so Kravis actually started off seven weeks(?!) of wedding festivities with an espresso martini or something, before sitting down for both an entrée and a main.

Are we still following the whole menu metaphor? I'm simply too deep now to stop.

In April, after the Grammy Awards in Vegas, Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker got unofficially married around 2am at One Love Wedding Chapel, by an Elvis Presley impersonator. 

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A post shared by Kourtney Kardashian Barker ❤️‍🔥 (@kourtneykardash)

The pair did not obtain a marriage license, and it was clarified a few days later that while it was indeed a wedding – it wasn't legally binding. 

"Once upon a time in a land far, far away (Las Vegas) at 2AM, after an epic night and a little tequila, a queen and her handsome king ventured out to the only open chapel with an Elvis and got married (with no license)," Kourtney wrote in a post to Instagram. 

The following month, things were formalised with a small wedding (and photoshoot) at a Californian courthouse.

Then, finally, came the main event: their huge, weekend-long celebration in Portofino, Italy, surrounded by friends, family and other famous folk like Machine Gun Kelly, Megan Fox and Travis' Blink 182 bandmate Mark Hoppus.

Rita Ora and Taika Waititi.

Okay, full disclosure: their main course wedding hasn't happened yet. And we only know about the entrée because of 'sources'.

But hear me out.

Either one source has been super busy, or the Taika/Rita camp leaks like a sieve, because in early August, almost all the major entertainment publications confirmed the pair were married - including People and E! News. 

Image: Instagram. 

Both Rita and Taika have been seen wearing gold bands on their wedding fingers recently, so they are either married or trolling us all.

The story goes, they wed in an intimate ceremony in London surrounded by family and friends

"It was a really intimate ceremony and super special for everyone there. Their nearest and dearest can see how madly in love they are," the source told The Sun.

"Despite living in the spotlight, Rita is determined to keep the relationship as private as possible and didn't want to make a big song and dance about the wedding."

Maybe that's because a big song and dance is coming later????

More ~sources~ claim they're still planning on having a bigger bash later in the year with all their famous friends. 

I truly think these two are Hollywood's greatest networkers so, I hope this is true. What a shindig that'd be.

Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner.

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A post shared by S O P H I E T U R N E R (@sophiet)

It was May 1, 2019, and I attended the surprise, quickie wedding of Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner in Vegas.

No, I wasn't invited. But Diplo was, and he famously livestreamed it on Instagram without permission. A d*ck move, for sure, but also, this former Jonas Brothers fangirl enjoyed the event immensely.

I have romanticised the idea of the Hottest JoBro (sorry Nick) and the Queen of the North's first wedding being a totally spontaneous decision after having too many drinks at the Billboard Music Awards. I have no idea if that's true, but Joe and Sophie seem cool enough for it to be the case.

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A post shared by S O P H I E T U R N E R (@sophiet)

Anyway, their big wedding for family and friends happened the following month in France, with Sophie wearing a beeeautiful Louis Vuitton gown.

The guest list included the Nick and Kevin Jonas, Priyanka Chopra, Maisie Williams and Wilmer Valderrama. 

Diplo was there too... and they locked his phone away. 

Zoe Kravitz and Karl Glusman.

Image: Instagram/@zoeisabellakravitz. 

Zoë Kravitz and her ex-husband Karl Glusman were very secretive about their wedding plans at first, with the bride nonchalantly dropping news of their engagement in a Rolling Stone interview - it was so casual, the reporter thought she was joking.

They first got legally married privately in May 2019, before flying to Paris for a larger celebration on the same June weekend as Jophie, above. What a weekend to be in France!

It all went down at Lenny Kravitz' Parisian mansion, with the bride's famous family in attendance, as well as friends like Cara Delavigne and her Big Little Lies co-stars Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern and Reese Witherspoon.

They kept any photos from the event completely under wraps for six months, only sharing pics on Instagram to celebrate the new year in 2020.

Sadly, Zoë and Karl quietly got divorced in December 2020. Although, she's now dating Channing Tatum, so it's not all bad news.

Hailey Baldwin and Justin Bieber.

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A post shared by Hailey Rhode Baldwin Bieber (@haileybieber)

Now we are getting to the throwbacks. Yes, sadly, 2018 is officially throwback territory.

The Biebers, as they are now known, shocked everyone when they eloped at a New York City courthouse in September 2018. 

The low-key wedding wasn't the most surprising part of it all: this went down less than four months after Justin had broken up with Selena Gomez for the 100th (and final) time, and absolutely no one could understand what was going on.

This was truly a wild moment in pop culture.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber)

Anyway, our love birds defied absolutely everyone's cynicism and finally held a lavish ceremony at a fancy South Carolina resort shortly after their one-year anniversary.

Hailey wore four different dresses and there were 154 guests, including Kendall Jenner, Katy Perry, Kylie Jenner, Usher and Jaden Smith.

Karlie Kloss and Joshua Kushner.

Supermodel Karlie Kloss first married businessman Joshua Kushner (yes... of that Kushner fam) in an intimate New York ceremony in 2018.

Eight months later, they threw a bigger second celebration at a ranch in Wyoming, which was a larger party full of celeb guests including Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher and PRINCESS BEATRICE?!

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A post shared by Karlie Kloss (@karliekloss)

Also, just some petty gossip: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner reportedly visited the couple on the ranch, but skipped the actual wedding celebration and the cutesy photoshoots with the rest of the famous people.

John Legend and Chrissy Teigen.

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A post shared by chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen)

John Legend and Chrissy Teigen planned a big ol' wedding in Italy, but then realised they needed to have another ceremony on home soil first.

"We are dumb and didn't realise that our Italian wedding would not be recognised unless we had a real ceremony in New York City," Teigen told E! News back in 2013.

They went straight from a Vera Wang Fashion Week show (pictured below) to the courthouse, with a supermodel in tow as a witness.

Image: Getty. 

"Irina Shayk was our witness—the most beautiful woman on earth," Teigen said.

They later jetted off for their lavish Lake Como celebration too - which included THREE Vera Wang dresses, a performance from Stevie Wonder and a guest list including Kanye West.

Chelsea McLaughlin is Mamamia's Senior Entertainment Writer and co-host of The Spill. For more pop culture takes, recommendations and sarcasm, you can follow her on Instagram. 

Feature image: OnTheJLo/Instagram @chrissyteigen, @sophiet.

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