Note: I’m not sure if this is Petra’s wedding gown or party gown. This is probably one of several.
Petra Ecclestone is a British heiress who puts Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian’s excesses to shame. She recently bought Candy Spellings insane estate, the largest mansion in L.A. County, for $85 million and will split her time between living there and in her 6-story $90 million home in London. Petra is all of 22 years old and is the daughter of Formula One billionaire Bernie Ecclestone.
Petra just married in a lavish ceremony outside Rome at the same castle where Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise married. The bash is said to have cost her (daddy) $6.5 million and featured $6,500 bottles of wine (per bottle, not case), and performances by the Black Eyed Peas, Eric Clapton, Andrea Bocelli and a string section from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Over $150,000 worth of fireworks lit up the night sky during the party. It sounds like it cost much more than just $6.5 million. Guests included Duchess Fergie and her daughters, Princess Beatrice and Eugenie, and Paris and Nicky Hilton.
Croatian English heiress and socialite, Petra Ecclestone, who recently dropped $85 million (!) on Candy Spelling’s mansion, swapped vows Saturday with businessman James Stunt in a lavish three-day affair right outside of Rome, according to People.
The 22-year-old daughter of billionaire Formula 1 racing CEO Bernie Ecclestone said I-do to Stunt at the castle where Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes tied the knot in 2006 (Castello Orsini-Odescalchi), with the bride reportedly walking down the aisle in a custom $130,000 Vera Wang gown.
And then there was the reception, where Andrea Bocelli, Eric Clapton and the Black Eyed Peas put on a show for guests like Paris and Nicky Hilton, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie and Sarah Ferguson as they sipped Chateau Petrus wine (which retails for $6,500 a bottle).
A source tells E! that after the Black Eyed Peas performed, Fergie pulled bride Petra, Paris and Nicky Hilton up on stage to dance. After that, David Guetta deejayed for two hours, and the Hilton girls were reportedly loving all the attention from the billionaire dudes in attendance.
“No one had ever seen anything like it. Everything was done to perfection with no expense spared,” a source gushed to E! Online. “It was the wedding of the century fit for a princess!”
Prior to the big day, guests were treated to a pre-wedding dinner at uber-posh hotel Villa Aurelia, where they dined on caviar, calamari, spinach ravioli and lamb chops, sipped Cristal champagne and enjoyed a performance by Alicia Keys, according to the Daily Mirror.
“It was the most fantastic setting,” a party attendee told the Mirror. “Our menus were customized mirrors with our names etched into them. It was easily the most decadent pre-wedding dinner any of us had been to. Then Alicia came on and sang all of her hits. She began with ‘Empire State of Mind’ and everybody was singing along. We couldn’t believe it–it was magical.”
[From E! Online]
You can see photos of the guests here, on Radar and The Daily Mail. There’s also aphoto of Petra on her wedding day, but you can’t really see her $130,000 Vera Wang dress. (I’m not sure whether the header photo is of her actual wedding dress, or if that’s the party dress.) Her makeup looks as heavy-handed and cheap as it usually does.
While I was looking up background for this story, I came across this interview with Petra from late last month that I missed. She reminds me even more of Paris Hilton when she speaks, and it’s easy to see how she’s friends with Paris. It’s all about how hard she works and while I don’t doubt that she may show up at a job during the day, it’s clear she has no clue how she comes across.
When asked why she bought Candy’s house, Petra explained “I wanted to have an amazing home where hopefully in the future I will be raising a family.” On if it crossed her mind that she could have built affordable housing for 1,000 families instead of buying that home, she answered “I help as much as I can but at the end of the day, however much the house has costed, that’s not going to kind of I dunno, like change the world I don’t think…
“I’m not going to not live in a certain way just because there are people less fortunate than I am.”
In terms of her then-upcoming wedding, she described it as “as low key as I can be. I try.” She added “I’m not spoilt, I’m priviledged. I think that’s a huge difference.” Not to the rest of us looking in from the outside there’s not.
This is Petra’s sister, Tamara, 27.
Duchess Fergie
Princess Eugenie
And this is Elisabetta Gregoraci. She’s “an Italian fashion model and TV personality.”
Photo credit: WENN.com and Kika Press/Pacific Coast News
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