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Very good article.
Why Britney’s Wedding Rang All The Right Bells
By Vanessa Feltz
"At Kate Winslet’s first wedding, to third assistant cameraman Jim Threapleton, the revellers convened for pie and mash at the local hostelry, and Kate was warmly congratulated by the world’s press for her down-to-earth, no-nonsense style.
Poor old Britney Spears attempts a similarly low-key celebration of what we assume was her union with dancer Kevin Federline and is castigated for choosing trailer trash over fairytale.
Let’s face it, the choices of any 22-year-old worth $100 million – whose preparation for life’s existential questions has been a childhood career as a hoofer and warbler for Disney’s Mousketeers – are bound to collapse under scrutiny.
Here, however, is the case for the Dissent.
Perhaps it wasn’t the epitome of chic to issue guests with velour tracksuits emblazoned with the word “Pimps” for the lads and “Maids” for the lasses. On the other hand, they’re a young couple and it might have been an in-joke, or maybe just a sensitive way of making sure the less affluent guests felt as comfortable as the wealthy – rich and poor dressed alike.
The bride’s choice of cuisine – chicken wings and cheeseburgers – wouldn’t pass muster in Gordon Ramsey’s kitchen. They are, however, the staple fare of Disney World, where the bride spent her formative years.
If Britney professed to adore black linguine in a cuttlefish jus, we’d label her a pretentious liar. Why should she not serve her guests food she knows they’ll be familiar with?
British aristocrats have no problem shelling out fortunes at the Ivy [restaurant] for such nursery food as shepherd’s pie. What’s wrong with Britney recalling the choices of a generation by munching on a Proustian nugget?
A pay bar was in operation at the reception. This could be considered inhospitable. Alternatively, it could be more charitably interpreted as a heroic attempt by Britney not to show off and intimidate her new groom’s family and friends. If everyone’s paying, everyone’s equal and she isn’t asphyxiating the proceedings with her dollars like some overpowering benefactress.
What looks like meanness could actually be an imaginative attempt to be inclusive.
Britney, by not bestowing her money upon her guests, empowers them and releases herself from the unpleasant role of cash cow.
Only someone who has endured being primped and prodded, curled and coiffed and dressed up like a human Barbie on the scale Britney has could imagine the enormous allure of NOT dressing up to the nines for your wedding.
Perpetually on display, forever photographed, criticized for putting a single trainer-shod foot out of place, Britney badly needs to relax.
A husband who demanded sartorial perfection would make her uneasy. She’d feel like a trophy to be worn as an adornment to his ego and bank balance.
Kevin Federline obviously helps create an atmosphere in which she can simply behave naturally. She doesn’t naturally behave like a Swiss finishing school graduate or a brain surgeon. So what?
If you contrast this wedding with the ill-fated nuptials of Jennifer Lopez and Cris Judd or even Liza Minnelli and David Gest, the difference is blindingly clear. The latter two were pantomime weddings, expressly for public consumption, ostentatious, enormous and ultimately soulless.
Britney’s effervescent smile and understated choices are absolutely appropriate for a 22-year-old. Her sister was her bridesmaid. His brother was his best man. Both ma-in-laws grinned broadly.
There’s every possible indication that these two might actually manage the decreasingly possible and live happily ever after."
-Daily Express,September 21, 2004
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