It wasn’t an episode of Ashton Kutcher’s forgettable Pop Fiction, but you’ve got to respect Nicole Richie and Joel Madden’s prank on the press: by playing into Star magazine’s (false) report that the two were getting married in a $2 million ceremony.

On Saturday, Madden updated GoodCharlotte.com to say “WE DID IT!! NICOLE AND I FINALLY GOT MARRIED!! click here for the pictures!!” And pictures there were: Of a wedding cake, and a, um, gorilla groom and bride, along with a note, “Haha, just kidding.”

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“According to Montag and Pratt’s latest cover story in Us, their dream is a small wedding on Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island in the Virgin Islands, with catering by Wolfgang Puck’s Cut restaurant, watches by Jason of Beverly Hills for all their guests and a performance by U2.” Oh, and for it to be filmed by MTV. [E!]

After paying an estimated $1.3 million for photos of Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz’s wedding, People magazine won’t risk any opportunity to turn their investment into a web traffic boon.

Meanwhile, while Joe Simpson turned his youngest daughter’s nuptials in a press spectacle, one other starlet managed to exchange vows under the radar: Jessica Alba, with Cash Warren, in a shotgun wedding. Perhaps it helped that nobody else was at the ceremony, and rather than wearing white, Alba chose “a long blue dress and her hair back in a ponytail.”

Why would Joe Simpson want daughter Jessica’s ex-boyfriend Tony Romo at Ashlee’s wedding? “To come to show support for the wedding,” as one Us Weekly source says? [Us] Or because papa Joe knows that the more celebrities at Ashlee’s wedding, the more exposure he can get, and the more he can possibly charge. We’ve already reported he sold the wedding pics to People for an estimated $1.3 million, but with Romo there, the gossip currency only grows. And let’s just hope Joe didn’t promise People that Tony would be there.

So yeah, Tony, go show your “support” for “the wedding,” and not Joe’s bank balance.

This is about the most iconic image you’re going to see following yesterday’s California Supreme Court ruling striking down a ban on gay marriage. Reads the caption: “A wedding cake is seen during a demonstration in West Hollywood, California, May 15 after the decision by the California Supreme Court to effectively greenlight same-sex marriage.” [Photo: AFP]

If you’re sitting near a TV today, you’re rainy Friday is gonna get a whole lot gayer, courtesy Ellen DeGeneres: “A spy in the audience of this afternoon’s taping of the Ellen DeGeneres Show tells us that after Ellen mentioned today’s California Supreme Court ruling striking down the state’s ban on gay marriage, she surprised everyone and announced that she was going to tie the knot with longtime girlfriend, actress Portia de Rossi. Portia was in the crowd and after she made the announcement, the studio audience went wild, giving the two a huge standing O.” [TMZ] Also, Justin Timberlake is on today’s show, so there’s that.

The White House released a few photos of Jenna Bush’s Saturday wedding to Henry Hager, son of the chairman of Republican Party in Virginia. Guests were treated to commemorative mugs, which they could take home and put next to their George H.W. Bush commemorative plates.

What assholes are going to show up to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum on May 19 to witness the “wedding” of Gossip Girl’s Lily van der Woodsen and Bart Bass? The reception will be, of course, at the Palace Hotel, were we might just happen to be enjoying a cocktail and waiting to see if The CW’s publicity team have dreamt up anything clever. [Jaunted]

TOUCH MY BODY, DON’T TOUCH MY BANK ACCOUNT Mariah Carey is DEFINITELY married to Nick Cannon, claims one gossip, and also DEFINITELY signed a pre-nup with her 10-years-younger husband because, heaven forbid things should go awry, she doesn’t want to give him anything more than a stage prop.

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Is news of Ben Widdicombe’s departure about to get trumped – in gay gossip circles – by Ted Casablanca? The E! gay-ssip today mentions his upcoming nuptials: “You’re pissy; we’re less so (I’m getting married in less than a week, and Becky’s gonna be free of my pushy ass for a whole two, woo-friggin’-hoo!).” Um, congrats?

Partner Jon Powell proposed to Casablanca last June “on a deserted Hawaiian beach.” At their wedding, they’ll still be wearing Speedos, but with tuxes over ‘em.

In July of ‘07, we shared with you the rock that TMZ.com’s Gillian Sheldon was wearing when she accepted partner Tim Heckendorf’s proposal. Tomorrow, it’ll be joined by a wedding band, when the happy couple exchange vows at a ceremony outside Los Angeles. An early congratulations to them both! And in good fashion, we’ll probably bring you the wedding dress on Monday.

Oh for the love of all that is holy, we can finally put this “speculation” about whether Jay-Z and Beyonce actually got married to rest. The duo filed their signed marriage license in Scarsdale on Friday. The news arrives today, just as most of the tabloids are shipping to the printer. No worries though; they didn’t much care for these nuptials anyhow.

[Anne Fletcher] makes the reasonably insightful, moderately funny point that modern American weddings, however they may strain for individuality and specialness, are all pretty much alike.

The problem is that much the same could be said about modern American romantic comedies. There is a touch of idiosyncrasy here and there — in this one the heroine’s dad is a widower who owns a hardware store! — but most of the elements might as well have been pulled off the registry list at a high-end chain store.

-A.O. Scott, “Bridesmaid Revisited, Again and Again,” New York Times

Harvey Weinstein and fashion designer Georgina Chapman will, we’re hearing, tie the knot under a tent in Connecticut tomorrow. She’s wearing a dress of her own design. He’ll be wearing wedding cake crumbs on his tux. And Paul McCartney will be wearing a cast, after he breaks his hand punching out the paparazzi.

You know you’re pre-menopausal [Ed: Or, in David’s case, suffering from hot-flashes] when…you read about the featured couple in Sunday’s Weddings/Celebrations section and find yourself involuntarily moved despite the hokey story arc, requisite Ivy League pedigrees and flashes of unattainable luxury.

That whole bit about the wife (champagne colored Jimmy Choo-wearing Katherine Van Loon) being a doctor/lifesaver who stood by her man (molecular biophysicist/All-American athlete Jon Steitz) while he traveled across the country to follow his dream of being a professional baseball player? And then, predictably, when Steitz’s arm gives out right before his big break and Steitz realizes, as the NYT puts it, “with baseball gone, she was the only true love left in his life?” Precious!

So much so that we didn’t even roll our eyes at the last paragraph, when the best man (and the groom’s college teammate/fellow Yalie) claimed to be speaking “without pretension” when he said that “[Of the] three of us Yale pitchers who were drafted…Jon was the most talented.”

There’s nothing quite like putting on your best hand-beaded, Swarovski crystal-encrusted gown, marrying the love of your life at your 27-acre Beverly Hills canyon estate at a lavish 275-person wedding only to find discover that the best man (better known as Mike Tyson) was just sentenced to 24 hours in jail.

At this point, if you’re newlywed Mei Sze Chan, all you can do is laugh, cry and thank the lord you came out of all this with your wedding photos, requisite Times writeup and earlobes intact. And, conceivably, pray that your marriage lasts exponentially longer than Tyson’s most recent prison stay. (Or at last long enough to counteract the prenup).

Whilst browsing the Weddings/Celebrations section of this Sunday’s New York Times, we couldn’t help but notice what may well be the most amazing correction ever written on page 21. Without wanting to unnecessarily delay your enjoyment, we’ve decided to omit a clumsily written introduction and simply—and cheerfully—reproduce it below, for your utmost reading pleasure.

A report on Oct. 24 1988, about the marriage of Amy Levine and David Abrams, misstated where the bride received her undergraduate degree. She graduated from Brown University, not Boston University. Amy Abrams only recently called attention to the error.

Thanks for finally setting the record straight, Amy. And here we’ve spent the past nineteen years berating you for attending a non-Ivy. [NYT]

Just as we predicted a mere three months (and three days) ago, Jenna Bush is officially engaged to her longtime flame, Henry Hager.

In order to commemorate this happy occasion, CNN does a long, sort-of boring story on the couple’s announcement, relying heavily on this recycled photograph of First Lady Laura Bush picking her nose.

[Breitbart]

Assuming everything went according to plan, Jann Wenner’s son Alex walked down the aisle with his longtime girlfriend this Saturday while you spent the entire weekend draping yourself over the air-conditioning.

ROLLING Stone editor Jann Wenner’s eldest son, Alex Wenner, will marry his longtime girlfriend, Emily, today at the Villa des Amis on Scuttlehole Road in Bridgehampton - with no financial help from his media-mogul dad. Insiders say Alex is “paying for the small wedding himself.” The rehearsal dinner was held last night at the East Hampton house of Alex’s mother, Jane Wenner. We’re told Alex, who was said to have a spotty attendance record at NYU, is a computer genius.

And we can’t help but admire Alex’s staunch refusal to accept any favors (financial or otherwise) from his father. (You know, kind of like Ben Wasserstein, only the opposite!) Meanwhile, we’re not entirely sure why the bride’s family didn’t foot the bill, but presumably they figured having Jann Wenner as an in-law was already payment enough.