With the recent description Ariana Grande’s “low-key” (a polite term for basic and unremarkable) wedding to Dalton Gomez publicized during the week after the event itself, its decided tameness rather makes one nostalgic for the days of a pop star wedding like Madonna’s. The frenzy around it so insane that M’s groom, Sean Penn, felt obliged to bill it as “the remaking of Apocalypse Now.” Complete with choppers looming overhead. Unlike Lana Del Rey in the “High by the Beach” video, however, Madonna did not feel compelled to shoot them down, while Sean Penn definitely did—and actually tried by firing his own gun (smaller than Lana’s, but still). Just one of many memorable scenes from the Malibu maelstrom.
Both women, it seems, had a hankering to get married on the California coast, a far more romantic tableau, believe it or not, than anything Italy or France has to offer. Grande might have gone for the ever-trending Montecito (where she has a house [used as the venue], and where Harry and Meghan have also recently settled. Oh yeah, and also Miley Cyrus saw fit to name-check the town on Plastic Hearts’ “Golden G-String”), but Madonna kept it more classic—by her standards, anyway—in terms of the environment selected. Married in Malibu, at the palatial mansion of real estate developer and Penn family friend Dan Unger, the seaside affair quickly turned Vietnam-esque as Sean proceeded to spell FUCK OFF in giant letters while paparazzi-filled helicopters circled overhead (remember, this was before drones).
As the most coveted event of the year, the invites offered a sardonic spin on “American Gothic” (with Madonna wearing a “Sean Toy” belt). What they did not provide was a precise location for the ceremony so as to keep the paparazzi off the scent. Instead, the couple urged, “Please Be Prompt or You Will Miss Their Wedding Ceremony. The Need for Privacy and a Desire to Keep You Hanging Prevents the Los Angeles Location From Being Announced Until One Day Prior.” No wonder the likes of Andy Warhol would be so titillated by the exclusivity of it all. The duo also called the wedding their “birthday party,” as they got married on August 16th, the day M turned twenty-seven (incidentally, the same age Ari would be). August 17th would then mark Sean’s twenty-fifth birthday (for another eerie parallel, this, too, is Dalton Gomez’s age).
No such extensiveness of secrecy was really required for the Gomez/Grande nuptials because the fervor surrounding celebrity has noticeably calmed down ever since they became more accessible on social media and tabloid journalism’s clout waned. What’s more, one cannot underestimate just how huge a star Madonna was at this time. We’re talking bigger than Grande (a somewhat redundant statement when you translate her last name), bigger than Eilish, bigger than Swift. Truly, a juggernaut everyone wanted a piece of. And Madonna would have been happy to oblige—if only Sean would have been more into it. After all, this was the goal she had been working toward her entire life, how could she be expected not to lap it all up? A Leo such as herself, truly born for the spotlight… whereas Sean seemed to be an antithetical Leo who wanted to play his brooding, mysterious Brando card.
And, as any private person can usually attest, the more one wants to be out of the spotlight, the more it desires to shine on them (see: Greta Garbo). Thus, the wedding being shrouded in secrecy made it all the more of a “challenge” to be “conquered” by the press. Which is why, unsurprisingly, accounts from the wedding included, per People, “One interloper—an Italian photographer in camouflage gear and blackened face who had been hiding in the shrubbery since 1:30 in the morning—was ejected and his pictures of the blessed event were destroyed.” No such high drama from the Grande/Gomez “vow exchange,” touted as an “intimate” ceremony with less than twenty people. How fucking lame. No rock star cachet like Cher showing up in a purple wig to Madonna’s special day. Shit, even Madonna showing up to Grande’s wedding now that she lives in Calabasas might have given the occasion far more momentousness.
But no, as told by E!, “Grande and Gomez had a backyard wedding at her Montecito house with white floral decorations… the couple was surrounded by ‘hundreds of white florals’ when they wed in her backyard.” Again, the blandness of it all is evinced by “hundreds of white florals” sounding like a wholesome parody of Mary-Kate Olsen and Olivier Sarkozy’s “bowls and bowls of cigarettes.” The presence of which still probably wouldn’t have helped Grande much in the way of “rock n’ roll lifestyle” appeal. Here it bears wondering where the hell Miley Cyrus was (even if “punks” don’t condone Elon) to help add some pizzazz.
E! went on to cite an undisclosed “source’s” take on the affair as a testament to how “Ari wanted it to be simplistic and tasteful. All they cared about was having family there and to be able to enjoy the special moment together.” Well, fuck, will you look at all the vomit on your shoes after hearing that? Madonna and Sean Penn passion this is not, so much as a case of two people not seeming to be aware that they’re “in love” with one another because they look like brother and sister (something Billie and Finneas can empathize with).
In any case, there might be at least one major similarity between the Sean Penn and Madonna vs. Dalton Gomez and Ariana Grande relationship, and that’s the fact that both couples were perfectly fine with a brief period of “dating.” In Madonna and Sean’s case, it only took six months for them to decide that tying the knot would be a good idea, whereas Grande and Gomez waited almost a whole year (spent in the love haze of quarantine) before announcing their engagement. Like the “Poison Penns,” the… Giddy Gomezes (?) also wanted to keep their wedding location and date a secret. Except they were actually successful in doing so, probably because no one was interested in attending such a yawn fest. What’s more, many people at the time made the assumption that “publicity-hungry” Madonna was the one to leak the details to the press herself.
Whoever’s lips went unsealed, we can thank them for it—because it gave us one of the most iconic weddings (right up there with Charles and Diana’s) weddings of the 1980s. Nay, the entire twentieth century. And based on the flaccidity of the twenty-first, it doesn’t seem like M and Sean’s will be topped anytime soon.
