4 Celeb Weddings That Weren't A Total Spectacle

When it comes to big, over-the-top weddings, you can always count on a celebrity to turn the day into a spectacle. Although research has found that the more expensive the wedding, the shorter the marriage, that hasn't stopped people like Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez from dropping a whopping $50 million on a lavish multi-day celebration — a party beset with gaudy extravagance, including Kylie Jenner's inappropriate wedding outfit that she'll never live down. So when Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announced their engagement, it begged the question: What sort of wedding will these two be having?

"It will definitely be a private affair and not a spectacle," a source told People in September 2025 about the couple's upcoming wedding. "They both have a close circle of friends, and they'll respect their privacy." Although Kelce said on his podcast, "New Heights," that wedding planning will be easier than football, and it's been rumored that the two will wed next summer in Rhode Island, the details about the upcoming nuptials are likely something fans won't get until after the fact.

But if Swift and Kelce do go low-key, per People's source, they certainly won't be the first celebrity couple to do so. Even the iconic Marilyn Monroe skipped the hoopla when she wed Yankee center fielder Joe DiMaggio, getting married in a civil ceremony at City Hall in San Francisco. In fact, for a lot of celebrities, despite money and fame, keeping their wedding quiet and private is preferred.

Although Sarah Jessica Parker is assumed to be just like her "Sex and the City" character, Carrie Bradshaw, when it comes to weddings, the two couldn't be any more different. While Carrie wore a breathtaking Vivienne Westwood gown and put a bird on her head for her wedding to Big, Parker's real-life wedding in 1997 was less glamorous. "... I wish it was because I was badass," Parker told Andy Cohen on "Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen" in 2016, via People, about the reason behind her black wedding dress. "I just was too embarrassed to spend any time looking for a wedding dress."

Not only did Parker skip wedding dress shopping, but she and Matthew Broderick didn't even tell their friends and family that they were invited to a wedding. "Our logic was we didn't want to call attention to ourselves that day, because we're actors and we get attention all day long," Parker told Glamour, via People. "It was a party for everybody else."

Although Parker and Broderick are still married, if she could, Parker would change some of her wedding choices. In 2006, Parker told Marie Claire she regretted wearing a black dress, explaining that maybe she and Broderick should have taken advantage of being the center of attention that night, which would have included her wearing white. "We treated it like it was a big party on a Monday night, and I regret it," Parker told the magazine.

Although one survey found that as many as 65% of 2021 weddings had been postponed in 2020 due to COVID, Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost got hitched anyway. Adhering to COVID protocols and CDC guidelines, the two got married at their home in Palisades, New York, in October 2020, keeping the guest list and the fanfare to a minimum. In fact, just a few weeks went into planning the wedding, only announced as having happened after the fact.

"I think just keeping it intimate and small made it feel intentional," Johansson told People in April 2021. "We wanted it to feel like it had an intentional intimacy as opposed to being something that felt like we were restricted by all these things." In July 2021, Johansson made a virtual appearance on "Late Night with Seth Meyers," explaining that the decision to get married during a pandemic was a little stressful, but the fact that they were able to keep it low-key is what mattered most.

While there are strange things about Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost's marriage we can't ignore, the two are still together and welcomed a son in the summer of 2021. "We just felt very fortunate to be able to get together like that," Johansson told Meyers. "It felt like it was sort of how it was supposed to be ... minus face masks."

While some consider power couple Beyoncé and Jay-Z as close as we get to royalty in the United States, when the two got married in 2008, they kept it very discreet. The couple got married at their home in New York City with only 40 guests, something that Beyoncé alluded to during an interview with Cosmopolitan in 2006, before she was even engaged to Jay-Z. "I never pictured myself as a bride, but ... I don't think I want a big one," Beyoncé told the magazine.

Not only was the guest list limited to 40, playing into the couple's affinity for the number four, because Beyoncé's birthday is September 4 and Jay-Z's is December 4, but the bride's mom, Tina Knowles, designed the wedding dress. Although it was a very small gathering, the party went into the wee hours of the morning. Guests were also asked to surrender their phones to maintain the event's intimacy.

While there's no denying there are red flags in Beyoncé and Jay-Z's relationship, the two are still together, and when they renewed their vows in 2018, they took everything up several notches to celebrate their 10th anniversary. Beyoncé wore a very glamorous and Queen Victoria-inspired $12,000 gown by designer Galia Lahav, and the celebration took place in Cardiff, Wales. This might actually be the way to do it: keep it super stealth and small for the wedding, then go all out for the vow renewal ceremony several years down the road.

Having an expensive wedding is important for some, but for others, it's all about affordability. When Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, a celebrity pair who are normalizing couples' therapy, got married in October 2013 after six years together, they went to the County Clerk's office in Beverly Hills. As Shepard shared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," via The Hollywood Reporter, the whole thing — including gas — cost $142.

"Friends of ours came to the courthouse, and it was just Kristen and I at this lonely courthouse, so they brought us this cake afterwards," Shepard told Kimmel, adding that it was the world's worst wedding. While it was inexpensive, especially by Hollywood standards, Bell called it both the easiest and best day of her life during an interview with Today in 2022. "I came out in sweatpants, and my husband was in a tuxedo, which was so cute, and he was like, I'll go pick your outfit out," Bell told Today. "And he picked out a little black jumpsuit."

Bell and Shepard had waited for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) of 1996, which defined marriage as just between one woman and one man, to be overturned before officially tying the knot. When that happened in 2013, Shepard re-proposed to Bell. "Dax and I have talked about it a lot, and this issue is very important to both of us," Bell told The Advocate in February 2012. "We're just standing up for what we believe in. Period."