EVERYONE’S INVITED
OLICE were needed to hold back the crowds of weeping Beatles fans when Paul McCartney wed his American girlfriend Linda Eastman.
The ceremony took place 50 years ago at Marylebone Register Office on March 12, 1969. It was supposed to be a quiet affair, but the couple had to enter by a side door to escape the throng of people waiting for them outside.
Paul wore a dark suit, a flowery shirt and a yellow tie for the ceremony and his 27-year-old bride wore a fawn dress and a yellow coat. Her six-year-old daughter Heather, from a previous marriage, was also in attendance.
Paul and Linda’s marriage lasted 29 years until she sadly passed away from cancer in 1998 at the age of 56. She once explained the success of the relationship saying: “We both came from families in which parents got married, had children and the whole thing.”
Fellow Beatle John Lennon and Yoko Ono married later the same month in Gibraltar. They had tried to get married in Paris a few days earlier, but when that failed, they charted a plane to Gibraltar and got married at the British Consulate in a 10-minute ceremony.
Yoko has said: “My husband John Lennon was a very special man. A man of humble origin, he brought light and hope to the whole world with his words and music.”
The police and photographers were out in force when British photographer David Bailey married French actress Catherine Deneuve at St Pancras Registry Office in 1965.
The couple had only met 11 weeks earlier when David had been in Paris taking photographs.
Police had to hold back the crowds so the newly-weds could reach their car. It was his second marriage and the couple remained together until a divorce in 1972. Catherine once said: “Love is suffering. One side always loves more.”
Crowds also turned out to watch Julie Andrews’ first marriage to set and costume designer Tony Walton at St Mary Oatland Church in Weybridge, Surrey, in 1959.
They were childhood sweethearts and Tony said that he fell in love with her when they were in their early teens and he saw her playing the egg in a theatre production of Humpty Dumpty at the London Casino.
They couple had a daughter called Emma and remained friends even after their divorce in 1967. Julie Andrews later married Pink Panther and 10 film director Blake Edwards in 1969.
The marriage of Hollywood star Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956 was a lavish affair and attracted international attention.
The 600-strong guest list at Monaco’s Saint Nicholas
Cathedral included fellow film stars David Niven, Ava Gardner and
Gloria Swanson and the ceremony was watched by an estimated 30 million on television.
The bride’s hair was styled by Sydney Guilaroff, from Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, while Oscar-winning costume Motorcycle outriders, an armed guard and 30 million viewers around the world marked the wedding of Monaco’s Prince Rainier to actress Grace Kelly in 1956
designer Helen Rose made Grace’s fairytale princess wedding gown, which included more than 400 yards of fabric.
The Rear Window and High giving a thought to anything else.”
The couple were married for 26 years and had three children.
Rock ‘n’ roll king Elvis Presley once said: “When I get married, it’ll be no secret.” He was right and he and Priscilla Beaulieu ended up tying the knot in Las Vegas at the Aladdin
Hotel on May 1, 1967.
A press conference was sandwiched in between the small wedding ceremony and a champagne breakfast for 100 guests, and Elvis’s manager Colonel Tom Parker made the wedding arrangements.
Elvis wore a tux and cowboy boots to the wedding and his bride opted for a white dress with lace sleeves embroidered with little pearls.
Their wedding cake stood six tiers high and was decorated with marzipan roses and the couple later danced to Love Me Tender.
The newlyweds also held a second reception in Gracelands, the Memphis home of Elvis, a month later for friends and family who had not been able to attend the first.
Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe tied the knot with baseball superstar Joe DiMaggio at San Francisco City Hall on January 14, 1954.
The couple had eloped and it was supposed to be a quiet affair, but they were bombarded by reporters and fans after Marilyn accidentally revealed her wedding details to a colleague. The marriage only lasted 274 days, but the couple became friends again in later life and it was Joe who handled the funeral arrangements following her death.
He had red roses delivered to her final resting place every week for 10 years and his final words were: “I’ll finally get to see Marilyn.”