We don't normally cover current events, but I can't help but be all tickled by the news trickling out from Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan's totally nontraditional wedding yesterday. A few distinctly offbeat details:
- Backyard wedding (they totally just got married at their own house)
- Surprise wedding (guests thought they were showing up to celebrate Priscilla's graduation from medical school)
- Short engagement (they'd only been planning for four months or so)
- Custom non-diamond ring (a ruby, with a setting designed by Zuck himself)
- No cake (they served chocolate mice, a nod to their first date)
It's always an unexpected treat to see folks who could afford to get married on the moon opt for simple, down-home ceremonies. (But don't get me wrong: I love moon marriages!)
Related post: Mark Zuckerberg And Priscilla Chan Strike A Blow Against The Wedding Industrial Complex
That is so sweet!
Probably pretty easy to have a bad-ass backyard wedding when you’re a billionaire. Haha!
Totally, but I think it’s probably pretty easy to have ANY kind of bad-ass wedding you want when you’re a billionaire. It says something that they went low-key with it.
I LOVE hearing about billionaires doing things how we do them. This is why I love Modern Family so much, watching that family reminds me of mine only in a fancier house.
I think it’s totally awesome. I love that it seems to be in line with their personalities and relationship–neither of them strikes me as flashy or super socialites (ironically?)
Also, hehe Google News.
They look lovely! It doesn’t matter what type of wedding ceremony they have as long as it is what they want.
It’s cool that they went low-key when they could have splurged on something so much bigger. I literally have no opinion of Zuckerberg (never paid much attention to him), but he DOES seem to be the type who doesn’t want to draw undue attention to himself, and I can certainly relate.
Mazel!
Is it just me or do neither of them look particularly happy in this shot?
Would YOU look happy posing for a photo requested by corporate PR, for distribution via the Associated Press?
Good point! I didn’t think of that.
Especially when they’re acknowledged to be an intensely private couple. And, I dunno… he seems to have a certain of “Tee hee!” around his eyes…
Lovely photo as well! Very simple and unpretentious, with the sunlight through her veil giving off a romantic tint…
Chocolate MICE??
They’re a thing. Try googling LA Burdick chocolate mice.
they’re adorable! too cute to eat?
They are delicious! I live in Cambridge, and I know and love that particular L.A. Burdick’s shop. They also sell penguins in the winter. 😀
At least having no warning meant the guests didn’t have to agonise over what to buy a couple just valued at $16.1 billion!
I like that she’s just graduated medical school – it means she is an academia nerd, like (what was it again?) about 50% of us? Good authentic vibes coming off this wedding – some recent celebrity circuses could take a few notes…
Yes just a run of the mill back yard wedding in your own home. Anyone else live in a $7million home? Or share their garden with 7 other apartments like me?! Seriously though I think it’s great they did it with so little fuss and pomp. Why celebs want their special day splashed all over Hello! I don’t know. It makes you wonder if their marriage is just to further their career and celebrity status. People with nothing to prove like Mark Zuckerberg can have the wedding they want without cheapening it with media exposure- much respect! Interesting that he chose the same weekend he floated FB on the stock market though- if that hadn’t gone well it would have put a bit of a dampner on the wedding!
When they started the ball rolling on floating FB they had no idea of when it would happen. Taking a business public takes time and doesn’t really follow a logical path. It was just random it happened that way.
He actually rented his home for a long time and only recently bought a house.
7 million house in Palo Alto is much more modest then other parts of the country. Good for them. That one way to avoid the media circus and have the day be about friends and family. You know if they did the traditional wedding it would be all over the news and they would have media all over the place.
would like to point out this was not the images released to the Associated Press (AP), this was simple used on Mark’s FB page …
Odd! When I stumbled across this photo online yesterday, it was credited to the AP.
I still hate timeline.
HA!!
You love moon marriages…and Moon marriages (as in Jen Moon – yes, I read the book!) 😀
Aw, I think their wedding is sweet. I really hope they will stay together forever. That looks a lot like the dress I want to get married in. I want it to be sleeveless and go up to my neck without cleavage. Also love that veil. Aw chocolate mice ! So cute ! I wish them both well.
Julia
So awesome! They should go big for their 5th anniversary. Like kidnap their guests and take them to Hawaii or something.
I told my boyfriend about “the facebook guy” getting married in his backyard, his response “his backyard is probably worth half a mil.” Good point.
The chocolate mice are adorable and I love her dress!
But… HAS HE CHANGED HIS FB RELATIONSHIP STATUS???
…Inquiring minds, and all that.
Love it!
Now off to google the Ruby engagement ring. I’m getting my sapphire e-ring in a couple weeks and am glad I have another example of colored stone engagement ring for the naysayer traditional types 🙂
ETA: googled it. It’s actually quite a lot like mine! Just switch out red for blue!
Agreed! I’m not the biggest fan of Zuckerberg or Facebook, but I was cheering them for doing something apparently true to themselves rather than going the attention-whoring celebrity wedding route.
I was out of the country during this wedding, and I just found out about it! I had to catch up on it via “news” stories, and I must say that they were awful! So many writers were mean-spirited toward the couple! Thank you, Ariel, for covering their wedding with your normal awesome acceptance of all types of celebrations! It is, of course, easy for billionaires to throw whatever parties they want, but good for them for being true to themselves!