Love, marriage and Hollywood beginnings
02/05/07 02:55 PM
By ED BARK
Stars are people, too. Just ask People. Or for the purposes of this ABC special, its sister publication, In Style, will do quite nicely.
"Known for its unprecedented access to celebrities" -- at least that's what it says in the press release -- the magazine offers a glowing tribute to Hollywood-style marriages on Monday's In Style Celebrity Weddings (Feb. 5th at 9 p.m. central, 10 eastern).
Cooing all the way, it's a nice change of pace from the non-stop nasty breakups that fuel so many of today's magazines, tabloids and TV shows. This one-hour ABC special is all about hearts aflutter, beginning with the chance sighting of Marcia Cross's future husband at a Los Angeles flower shop.
Cross, who plays persnickety Bree Van De Kamp on Desperate Housewives, says she was enthralled by Tom Mahoney's voice. Who could this magical creature be?
"Nobody," the flower shop owner supposedly told her. "Which in L.A. means, of course, not an actor," Cross translates.
Still, she left her number for him and stockbroker Mahoney eventually called. Their wedding reception was at the Huntington-Ritz Carlton in Pasadena, where a collective rabble of TV critics just finished the midseason network television "press tour." Cross shares her wedding day bliss with In Style, and frankly it's touching to see her dance with her Dad as a first-time bride. She's now pregnant with twins.
The ongoing Bridezillas on WE: Women's Entertainment and producer David E. Kelley's upcoming Fox series The Wedding Bells both accentuate the trials and tribulations tied to walking down the aisle. Not so In Style, where true love runs smoother than a George Clooney pickup line.
"I feel, truly, for me, he was a gift from God," Ali Landry says of new husband Alejandro Monteverde, a filmmaker whom she married in Mexico. A narrator notes that Landry had survived a quickly annulled marriage to Dancing with the Stars runnerup Mario Lopez. Her "second chance at love" so far is hanging' in there.
Other celebrity newlyweds in the special are Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott; Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley; Niki Taylor and Burney Lamar, Sean Patrick Thomas and Aonika Laurent; and Joe Don Rooney and Tiffany Fallon.
Put them all together and they're perhaps one-half as well known as "TomKat" -- Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Their wedding is saved for last, even though neither star talks to In Style. Nor is there any previously unseen footage from their fairytale marriage at the medieval Odescalchi Castle in Italy, blah-blah.
We do, however, get to hear designer Giorgio Armani talk in translated Italian about his meticulous threading together of Cruise's tuxedo and Holmes' two gowns.
"Tom is not a particularly tall person and needed a suit that was tailored closely to his body," the old rascal reveals.
But let's not be snide. All in all, In Style Celebrity Weddings is a harmless little pick-me-up bouquet. So it's hoped that some of these blissed-out unions indeed will stand the test of time. Just about everyone on this planet deserves to find true happiness. That even includes those who live on Planet Hollywood.
Grade: C+
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