So, Britney Spears got engaged, last week, to her boyfriend Jason Trawick. Congrats go out to the happy couple and the pop star herself as she’s made quite the recovery from a very dark time and, most would agree, has reached her thirties with plenty of awesome years ahead of her.
Do you realize that this will be her third time down the aisle? Yup.
And she’s not alone. Earlier this year several other celebrities made it official for the third time around: Sir Paul McCartney (to Nancy Shevell), Robin Williams (to Susan Schneider), Peter Fonda (to Margaret DeVogelaere) and Shannen Doherty (to Kurt Iswarienko).
Image courtesy of Rain Rabbit via Flickr, used under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0
A year ago I might have rolled my eyes at each and every one of these nuptials but I’ve experienced quite the change of heart. I’ve always been in favor of celebrating any milestone you choose to, weddings being no exception, but I was also stuck in the cultural rut of one too many weddings a laughing-stock does make, and 3 seemed to be that threshold of no return.
Obviously, I now see the error of that point of view.
My first two marriages were relatively brief–not 72 days brief like Kim Kardashian and not 55 hours like Britney’s first marriage to friend Jason Alexander, but neither made it past the 3 year mark. But with age really does (or, at least, can) come wisdom and we start to weigh our decisions a little more and be slightly less impulsive. We go, perhaps, for the comfort and companionship of a true relationship over the fire and flash of a heady romance.
Not to say that Todd and I don’t share a romantic or passionate connection, it’s just not what we expect to get us through the day-to-day of life and I think that’s why we’ll last longer than my previous marriages–why we already have in some respects.
Shannen Doherty was quoted in People magazine saying “Marriage to me is such a gigantic commitment that it’s not something I’d ever go into lightly anymore. I’ve learned my lesson.” Haven’t we all?
And to Kim Kardashian, in the midst of her second divorce, if, in the future, you find your way down the aisle for the third time, know that you’ll be in some pretty good company.
Good luck to Spears and Trawick, and to anyone else planning their walk down the aisle, whatever number it is!
Do celebrity weddings make you think more or less
about certain trends–
be it number of nuptials or anything else?