Why Do Stars—Like Salma—Have Two Weddings?

Celebs get married like normal people, but why do they need to have several weddings to the same person in order to celebrate?
—N.M.

First of all, no. Oh dear God, no. Celebrities do not marry like normal people. Not unless normal people demand thick nondisclosure agreements of their flower sellers and booze pourers, and thousands of dollars worth of free candles and dresses and cakes.

Did your cousin in Kalamazoo withhold the location and exact date of her wedding from her vendors until the day before the event, the way TomKat did? Point made.

So. Why did Salmita need two weddings? And Gwen Stefani? And Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady? Sure, logistics have a lot to do with it, and the paps. But the biggest factor is something much less flattering...

...and that's ego.

"The celebrity bride that keeps going and going is the quintessential actress, always needing to be the center of attention," one wedding vendor tells me. "Every bride is a celebrity on her wedding day, so that celebrity bride needs to have that spotlight magnified 100 times."

In other words, 100 weddings, if possible. Some more practical reasons for multiple weddings:

1. Celebrities Are Popular: They have friends all over the planet and must make sure every single one of them gets to see the bride in her hand-painted Galliano dress. When native Californian Stefani married British Gavin Rossdale, their English friends attended the London wedding at an Anglican church; the rest went to a second wedding held near the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.

2. Celebrities Crave Privacy: Especially when they're pledging their love for each other. In that aspect, they're quite normal. "Celebrity couples may have a destination wedding to have something more intimate, so they don't have every agent and publicist in town at their wedding," says Harmony Walton, whose Bridal Bar has served celebrity brides like Katherine Heigl. "They'll have a destination wedding, and once they've had the moment that really counts, they come back and celebrate with everyone."

3. Celebrities Want to Avoid the Paparazzi: Sometimes. Especially on their wedding day, when exclusive wedding pics can sell for six figures—but only if they're exclusive. So celebrities will plan a small, sneaky wedding—which is easier to keep away from paps—and then a larger one, where privacy doesn't matter so much.

To be fair, plenty of celebrities have just one wedding and stick to it. Heigl had only one. So did Fergie, and even TomKat, technically. (Their postwedding party in L.A. was just a party, not another ceremony.)

And I also hear that when former Girl Next Door Kendra Wilkinson marries her Hank Baskett at the Playboy Mansion this summer, there will be only one, massive, hulking wedding.