The bride wore a giant meringue, the groom a gold-braided white tuxedo and 250 guests witnessed the arrival of the bridal party in a horse-drawn glass carriage. If it sounds like Disneyland, that's because it was (Disneyland California, which was closed to visitors for the couple's big day). But if it sounds like a wedding, it wasn't quite. Mariah Carey and America's Got Talent presenter Nick Cannon were indeed pledging their troth to one another earlier this month; only this was the fifth time.
The couple have renewed their wedding vows every year ever since they were first hitched in 2008. Since then they've had re-runs at venues including the Eiffel Tower, Las Vegas, and a hospital room after Carey had given birth to their twins, Monroe and Moroccan, two years ago; each May, it seems, the objective is to outdo the last in its outlandish lavishness.
Carey and Cannon certainly aren't the only celebrities to have gone big on marriage vow renewal. Last month actor Matt Damon and his wife Luciana Barroso renewed their vows in St Lucia. Other big names who've done it again include supermodel Heidi Klum and singer Seal, Madonna and director Guy Ritchie - though in these cases the renewal wasn't an obvious success, as both marriages hit the rocks soon after.
So is the trend simply another way of hogging the headlines - or is there a deeper meaning to renewing your marriage vows? No-one is collating the figures but, anecdotally at least, the phenomenon certainly seems to be on the increase in Britain. Almost every local authority now has information on how to renew your vows - and, explains Steve Lloyd, head of registration of Lancashire County Council, although renewals are small numerically compared with actual weddings (30 a year in his area, compared to 3,000 marriages) there is a steady stream of interest, with a snowball effect from one renewal ceremony to the next. "You often find that people booking to renew their vows have been to a similar ceremony where friends have renewed theirs," he says. "Whatever the reason for doing it, there clearly is a reason - and that means there are invariably strong feelings running through the ceremony. They're always meaningful, whether it's just the couple themselves or a huge group."
Reverend Andrew Axon of St Philip and St James in Hucclecote near Gloucester agrees. He expects to officiate at six or seven renewal ceremonies this year, but at his last parish in Nottingham he was doing around 20 annually. "As more people hear about it, so the more popular it tends to become," he says. "Often there are echoes of the original wedding: couples will choose the same flowers, maybe the bride will wear the same jewellery, and often there's a photograph on display from the wedding itself." One thing that doesn't tend to make a second outing is the bride's dress. "Most women say they can't fit into it any more," says Rev Axon.
