What To Say About . . . J.lo's Wedding
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday September 6, 2003
Keep the wedding gift receipt, the imminent marriage of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck is likely to be a short-lived affair.
The warning bells were sounded by the Courier Mail after Ben's reportedly ``wild night of sex" with a bed-load of contortionist strippers in July. This of course led to a ``furious Lopez" cancelling their on-off wedding.
Adding to their relationship woes was Ben and J.Lo's dismal showing in the ``train wreck" film Gigli. Indeed, you say, borrowing the words of Newark Star-Ledger critic Stephen Whitty, ``Gigli is such an utter wreck of a movie you expect to see it lying on its side somewhere in rural Pennsylvania, with a small gang of engineers circling and a wisp of smoke rising from the caboose."
But what can you expect, you say knowingly and thanking silently the Sun Herald: ``Romance in the workplace, while common, is always tricky, and with the ambitions that these two both have, it could get messy."
Too late for that. This Hollywood coupling has the use-by duration of yogurt. You can be confident in your prediction, knowing that 41 per cent of participants to the Herald's online poll gave the marriage less than one year.
Still, enjoy the canapes while they last. Go home and check the answering machine, you say, relying on a US Weekly report that the 400 guests for the Santa Barbara wedding on September 14 received their invites by phone. The ceremony is expected to take place on a hillside estate, ``maybe at a winery".
But what will the bride wear on her third trip down the aisle? Well, you note, in the words of the New York Daily News, at J.Lo's wedding to dancer Cris Judd in 2001 they lasted less than nine months she wore ``a Valentino Couture off-white silk and Chantilly lace gown". Perhaps this time, you and the Daily Telegraph suggest, J.Lo might don something from her own ``sexy and fun mixed line of clothing". But does her $199 ``denim-belted jumpsuit" come in white?
Don't get too excited, you warn, tabloid reports that this ``two-headed celebrity symbiote" is to wed may be premature. In fact, you say, echoing the cautionary words of the Arizona Republic: ``You can put this on your calendar, but we suggest you use pencil."
Could the wedding plans be a sham, you (and The Australian Financial Review) wonder aloud. Who can know what's legit with this relationship, which is ``its own reality mini-series, complete with music videos, Diane Sawyer interviews and MTV specials".
In all such matters, best steal the words of Ben's publicist as quoted in USA Today: ``Don't ever believe anything you read in the tabloids."
© 2003 Sydney Morning Herald