After a long period Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt engaged. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie made it official: They plan to make it official.If you thought the media circus involving the world’s most glamorous
couple was on overdrive before, just wait. Now that Brangelina are
officially engaged, expect endless speculation about where and when
they’ll wed, what they’ll wear, what their kids’ roles will be, and who
might get to attend the celebration.
“This is really a state
wedding,” said Stephen Galloway, executive editor of features at The
Hollywood Reporter. “This is America’s equivalent to Prince William and
Kate Middleton.”
He called the Brangelina wedding “the media event of the new century.”
Pitt’s
manager confirmed the couple’s engagement Friday after Jolie was
spotted wearing a diamond ring on her wedding finger. Jeweler Robert
Procop said he spent a year working with Pitt to design the ring.
“The prominent engagement ring is giving the world a warning,” Galloway said. “It says look out, get ready.”
But
Bradley Jacobs, a senior editor at Us Weekly, sees things differently.
He anticipates the wedding will be a private, even low-key affair.
“I don’t think you’re going to see a bunch of fanfare,” he said. “It’s
certainly not going to be a Kim Kardashian-style wedding... It’s going
to be very subdued.”
Still, expect massive media coverage either
way: “We will not rest until we know when and where and how and who’s
going to be there,” Jacobs said.
Entire magazine issues could be devoted to each star’s wedding-day outfits and hairdos.
“Every single designer on the planet will be pursuing Angelina for the
dress,” Galloway said. “It’s literally worth millions of dollars in
business.”
Jolie’s wedding dress is a career-making outfit for the winning designer.
Even
Pitt’s look leaves room for ample speculation: Long hair or short?
Facial scruff or clean shaven? A classic tuxedo? And designed by whom?
Then
there’s the guest list. Who will be the best man and maid of honor?
Will Jolie’s father, Jon Voight, attend? Will George Clooney be in the
house? Jolie has said she doesn’t have many close friends.
“This
is going to be a map of the inner state of their private life,”
Galloway said. “This is like Kremlinology. You’ll be able to read all
sorts of things into this wedding.”
Unless, of course, the two elope.
The
timing of the engagement and the wedding are also fodder for editorial
exploration. The couple long maintained that they wouldn’t marry until
the right to do so was extended to all Americans, but when Galloway
interviewed Pitt for a February cover story, the 48-year-old actor said
he didn’t think they’d be able to hold out that long.
“It means
so much to my kids, and they ask about it,” Pitt said at the time. “And
it means something to me, too, to make that kind of commitment.”
But days later, he backtracked, saying he’d spoken too soon.
“There’s a certain mystery in these contradictory statements made in
the weeks leading up to this (engagement news),” Galloway said. “People
who’ve been together a long time get married when things are great or
when you want to shore up things that are not so great.”
The A-listers have been partners since they began a relationship in 2005 while working on the film “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”
Already
megawatt superstars in their own right, the romantic pairing of Pitt
and Jolie instantly made them Hollywood’s most glamorous and
photographed couple. The fact that Pitt was still married to Jennifer
Anniston when he met Jolie only fueled the tabloid fire; Pitt and
Aniston divorced in 2005 after five years of marriage.
Jolie was previously married to Billy Bob Thornton and British actor Jonny Lee Miller.
Regardless
of the size of the celebration or where it takes place, the Jolie-Pitt
wedding has major economic implications. Journalists from all over the
world will swarm to the wedding location; the designers of each nuptial
element will see their businesses boom; the rights to the photos and
footage will be haggled over by publishers and broadcasters with deep
pockets.
Galloway predicts the bidding has already begun.
“A mini-industry in itself will be created as a result,” he said. “The
money generated by the wedding in direct fees to them and indirect
income to other people will be more than the equivalent of everything
the two of them have earned in their career. You’re talking about two
empires meeting.”
Some of that revenue will, of course, be in magazine sales.
After
the rash of celebrity divorces last year, Brangelina fans “will be
happy to see them affirm their relationship and what they mean to each
other,” Jacobs said.
And they might be just as eager to read
accounts of why the wedding is not to be. Galloway speculates that
“between now and whenever the wedding takes place, there will be at
least a dozen stories that say it’s off; Brangelina call it quits.”