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LONDON - When it comes to spending money like there's no tomorrow, Steven Gerrard, Gary Neville, Michael Carrick and their brides showed that English footballers have no equal.
Their weddings, at a combined cost of 2 million pounds ($5.24 million), have restored the nation's pride. Once again the British are world-beaters.
Team captain John Terry opened the scoring on Saturday with a 1 million pound wedding at Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Winston Churchill.
Yesterday, first Gerrard and Alex Curran laid on a ceremony and reception at Cliveden House Hotel that cost at least 750,000 pounds.
Helping them reach that magnificent tally were guests Michael Owen, Jamie Carragher, Robbie Fowler, Harry Kewell and their attendant "Wags" (wives and girlfriends).
They were the ones privileged to see close up the cake as tall as the groom and the 60,000 pound diamond-encrusted dress. No fans got in, partly because OK! magazine paid 800,000 pounds for exclusive rights to the event, but mainly because Gerrard made a large donation to the National Trust, in return for which the organisation closed the estate for the weekend.
And then, overlapping down the aisle, came Gary Neville and bride Emma Hadfield to deliver a 1 million pound wedding for the England team.
Manchester Cathedral - as seen on shoot-'em-up serial-killing Sony video games - was hired and a vast tent erected for the reception in the grounds of the couple's 6 million pound 18th-century stately home.
And what a ceremony it was! The groom and best man, brother Phil, arrived in a silver Bentley. A huge cheer went up as Wayne Rooney and fiancee Coleen McLoughlin entered the cathedral, having flown up from Gerrard's do in their helicopter.
Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Nicky Butt came next, and then, at 3.15pm, the bride, wearing a tan complexion and a white dress, alighted from her limousine and proceeded up the special red carpet.
Meanwhile, in deepest Leicestershire, Michael Carrick and Lisa Roughead were playing a solid, midfieldish kind of game with their 250,000 pound wedding in a local church and, afterwards, at Staplefield Hall. The bride's dress was by Christian Lacroix and there was a £200,000 deal with Hello! magazine.
By the time the whistle went and the England boys and girls were showered with their hand-made, colour-co-ordinated confetti, the result was never in doubt.
Once again, English players are without doubt the best in the game. Just a shame the game isn't football.
- INDEPENDENT
