Surprising Celebrity Elopements!
Sometimes when we think of celebrity weddings, we automatically think of lavish affairs featuring hundreds of A-list guests. However, there are a surprising number of celebrity elopements too! Some of them even have reasons very similar to the eloping couples I speak with every single day. Some wanted to escape family drama, avoid a media circus or the paparazzi, while others just got overwhelmed with the planning involved in a big wedding!
Let’s take a look of some of the celebrity elopements that might surprise you!
As I mentioned above, a celebrity wedding usually conjures up ideas of a very expensive event, but one celebrity couple had a wedding that completely blows that stereotype out of the water! In 2013 Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard surprised fans with a secret elopement at a Beverly Hills courthouse. The total cost of the wedding was just $142! As celebrity elopements go, that’s pretty low budget!
Some celebrities just want to tie the knot in private away from the media. That’s exactly what Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott did in 2006 when they eloped to Fiji for a private ceremony with just the two of them in attendance! It was the second marriage for both parties, so like many ‘normal’ couples they didn’t feel the need to have a huge wedding.
Sometimes when you fall in love, you just know that it’s right! In 2006, after just 2 months of being engaged Jack Black married artist and musician Tanya Haden in a private ceremony. The couple has gone on to have two children together.
Hollywood couple Isla Fisher and Sacha Baron Cohen are also among the celebrity elopements that took me by surprise. They managed to keep their plans firmly under wraps for the 2010 ceremony, only informing the six guests at the last possible minute!
Cameron Diaz is one of Hollywood’s biggest names, but she is notoriously private when it comes to her personal life. I probably shouldn’t be too surprised then, that she wed Benji Madden in a secret ceremony at her home in Beverly Hills in 2015.
Megan Fox and Brian Green pulled off one of the ultimate celebrity elopements! The couple very publicly called off their engagement and everyone was sure that the romance was dead in the water. However, just weeks later the pair eloped to Hawaii with only Brian’s son Kassius as a witness! The couple has gone on to have 3 children together since tying the knot!
When it comes to celebrity elopements, one couple took the secret part to a whole new level! Matt Bomer got married to his partner Simon Hall in 2011. However, the couple didn’t actually announce the news until 3 years later!
Ryan Reynolds is definitely a fan of eloping! Not only did he elope with Blake Lively in 2012, but also with his first wife Scarlett Johansson in 2008!
Other Celebrity Elopements
A few other celebrity elopements that I have mentioned in previous blogs who deserve an honorable mention include Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos who exchanged their vows the next day after Mark’s proposal in a classic Vegas Elopement back in 1996! Of course, it would also be remiss of me not to mention champions of celebrity elopements Bette Midler and Martin Von Haselberg who got married in 1984 just weeks after meeting and are still going strong!
Sometimes Celebrity Elopements Don’t Have a Happy Ending
As I discussed in my recent blog post ‘Why Celebrity Marriages Don’t Last‘, the divorce rate among the stars is much higher than it is among the average population. I suggested that one of the reasons could be the high cost of their lavish wedding celebrations. However, there are other factors to consider such as the pressure of living in the spotlight or spending so much time apart due to work commitments. Even celebrity elopements sometimes end in divorce. Some couples who eloped, but didn’t make it include:
- Ben Affleck & Jennifer Garner eloped in 2005 but split in 2017 after having 3 children together.
- Orlando Bloom & Miranda Kerr tied the knot in secret in 2010 just a month after their engagement but called time on the marriage in 2013.
- Zachary Levi & Missy Peregrym not only kept their wedding under wraps, but they also didn’t even tell anyone they were dating until after they eloped in 2014. Unfortunately, the couple divorced in less than a year.
- Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie had been together for 9 years when they eloped with just their children present in 2014 – no mean feat for such an A-List couple! However, the couple split just 2 years later although the divorce has not yet been made official.