Disclaimer:
The information presented below is a matter of public record. Whatever would be considered confidential or private by either the couple or The Little White Wedding Chapel, for which I worked at the time, will remain confidential because a confidentiality agreement which was in place at the time and which remains in effect.
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FIFTEEN SECONDS OF FAME?
YES, I WAS THE MINISTER
AT BRITNEY SPEARS'
INFAMOUS FIRST
WEDDING CEREMONY!
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PEOPLE COVER
US MAGAZINE
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What Was
She Thinking?
In the wee hours of Jan. 3, 2004, after watching The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre in their $10,000-a-night suite at the Palms Casino Hotel,
Britney Spears and her childhood pal Jason Allen Alexander were
itching for a little excitement. They got it. Around 3:30 a.m.,
after a brief visit to the ghostbar, a swanky nightspot on the 55th
floor, they asked the bar bouncers for a limousine. In the lobby, a
bellman who doubles as a driver escorted the pair to the hotel's
lime-green courtesy limo and asked them where they wanted to go.
"Take us to a chapel," Spears answered.
As the limo, pop music filling its interior, cruised along Las
Vegas's celebrated Strip, Spears and Alexander made out. The first
two chapels they came upon were closed, but Spears told the driver
to keep going. Finally they came upon A Little White Wedding
Chapel, where lights were on and the door was open. Inside, says a
witness to the proceedings, the pair were told they needed a
license to marry. Hopping back in the green limo, the
soon-to-be-weds continued kissing and hugging until the car pulled
up to the Clark County Marriage License Bureau. As the two
22-year-olds waited to plunk down $55 in cash for a license, Spears
"really didn't say anything," says Linda Wells, one of three people
working the graveyard shift that night. "She was just kind of
quiet."
If the magnitude — or stupidity — of what she was about
to do was beginning to sink in, the pop world's most unpredictable
princess didn't let that stop the fun. At 5 a.m. she and Alexander
returned to the chapel, where they were ushered into the Michael
Jordan room, a 20-by-50-ft. sanctuary with white benches, each
dotted with a burgundy velvet cushion, and lined with white candles
and flowers. (The basketball star wed there in 1989.) As Spears
whipped out a credit card to pay for the $200 wedding, which
included photos, a bouquet of pink roses and a video, the $100
million performer exclaimed about how expensive the package
was.
"Too bad no one's here to give you away," the driver said. With a
look of surprise, Spears said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," then asked if
he'd perform the task. The pastor hit a remote, and the strains of
"The Wedding March" filled the room. Arm-in-arm with the driver,
Spears glided down the aisle past 10 empty pews in a belly-baring
black shirt, torn jeans and sneakers, her hair tucked carelessly
beneath a baseball cap. In a nod to tradition, she sported a white
garter, acquired at the chapel, that she'd pulled over her left
pant leg.
Seven minutes
later, after minister
Ian Schonken (sic)
proclaimed Spears and Alexander husband and wife, the newlyweds
locked in a long and passionate kiss, and the limo driver said,
"Congratulations!" As the couple exited, "they were smiling and
laughing," says another witness. "But it didn't seem like, Oh, this
is the love of her life."
Perhaps because it wasn't. Just 11
hours later, after the pair called their respective families and,
as Alexander put it, "all hell broke loose," the newlyweds appealed
for an annulment. Citing a failure to "know each other's likes and
dislikes, each other's desires to have or not have children, and
each other's desires as to state of residency," the formal request
concluded, "they are so incompatible that there was a want of
understanding of each other's actions in entering into this
marriage." Two days later it was all over but the memories.
One question remains, however: What were they thinking? Was this
evidence of a Spears meltdown? A misguided attempt to convince the
world she's no longer a teeny-bopper princess? An impetuous gesture
springing from deep feelings that neither have owned up to? Or was
it all just a p.r. gimmick? "This is by no means a publicity
stunt," says Lizzie Grubman, Spears's former rep. "What good could
come out of this?"
People close to Spears and Alexander vigorously deny that the two
wacky kids from Kentwood, La., were in an alcoholic haze when they
exchanged vows. "They weren't drunk," says Doreen Seal, 45,
Alexander's mother. "It's just a moment that got out of control,
and there was no one there to stop them. They made a mistake and
then they fixed it." Lance Bass, who, unlike his 'N Sync bandmate
and Spears's ex Justin Timberlake, remains close to Britney, spent
an hour with the pop diva in her suite soon after Alexander headed
back to Kentwood late the afternoon of his wedding day. "Young
people do stupid things every day," says Bass. "She was of sound
mind. It's just a moment where a joke went too far."
Just ask Britney's mom, Lynne, 48, who helps manage Spears's
career. Says Seal: "Lynne hit the roof." Within hours of Britney's
phone call to report she'd gotten hitched, Lynne had flown from
Kentwood to join her daughter in the Palms' N9ne Steakhouse, where
an annulment powwow was already under way involving the newlyweds,
Spears's brother Bryan, 26, her manager Larry Rudolph, Palms owner
and longtime friend George Maloof Jr. and the pop star's newly
hired attorney David Z. Chesnoff. "There were not many happy
campers," says an eyewitness.
Adults more removed from the soap opera — but connected to
Spears's professional life — have a harsher take on Britney's
high jinks. "She doesn't have good advisers," says a member of her
management team. "The mother just wasn't prepared for (stardom).
She doesn't have any control over Britney. In some ways, Britney
was the parent." Another source, who formerly worked with Spears,
echoes that sentiment in spades, saying that her advisers are
amateurs, that she rarely listens anyway and that the whole lot
"think they know the game, but they don't."
For now the trouble seems to be
contained. In what Las Vegas attorneys term a remarkably fast
turnaround, Spears and Alexander were granted a formal annulment
Jan. 5, putting her fortune off-limits from any claims by
Alexander. (However, Jason, a junior at Southeastern Louisiana
University, reportedly has hired a publicist to handle media
inquiries.)
But in her passage from teenybop phenom to tarty pop diva, Spears
has often seemed wildly out of control, particularly since her
March 2002 public split with Timberlake (who is now seriously
involved with actress Cameron Diaz), followed two months later by
her parents' divorce. The night she and Alexander landed in Las
Vegas, after having spent much of the Christmas holiday together in
Kentwood, reports circulated that she was drunk in the Palms'
ghostbar nightclub. "She was just tired from a long trip," Palms
owner Maloof responded. The incident echoed a series of such
reports over the last year of Spears allegedly partying heavily in
night spots in both the U.S. and Europe
Source: People
Magazine
BTW, the couple
was not drunk; otherwise I would not have married them!
--Iann
Disclaimer:
The information presented above is a matter of public record.
Whatever would be considered confidential or private by either the
couple or The Little White Wedding Chapel, for which I worked at
the time, will remain confidential because a confidentiality
agreement which was in place at the time and which remains in
effect.