Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes tied the knot 17 years ago in the “wedding of the century.”
For example, while it is unclear who officially bestowed this title on him – a term used by the media, including CBS News and Fox News, when the couple married in an Italian castle on November 18, 2006 – it continues to be used , most recently in Leah Remini’s recent Scientology lawsuit.
Although the union didn’t last forever, the wedding was definitely an extravagance – according to E! cost them more than $3 million. News – multiple days of events, high-profile guests and onlookers hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous movie star and his Dawson’s Creek actress bride in front of the Castello Orsini-Odescalchi in Bracciano. A wedding photo taken by photographer Robert Evans, showing the couple cheek-to-cheek against a vine-covered castle wall, confirmed it was official.
The wedding, which reportedly cost $3 million, included fireworks over the 15th-century castle. (Elisabetta Villa/Getty Images) (Elisabetta Villa via Getty Images)
The lead-up
After the couple went public in April 2005, the public was thrilled with the pairing. They were so outwardly in love, as Cruise made clear when he hopped on Oprah’s couch and gushed about “Kate.” For her part, she revealed that she had a childhood crush on Cruise, who was 16 years older than her. They rode her to a premiere on the back of a motorcycle like a real Maverick and Charlie from Top Gun. Less than two months after they met, he proposed to her at the Eiffel Tower, which was announced at a press conference.
It all seemed too much to believe – and there was skepticism. Was it a publicity stunt? Had she really auditioned to be his third wife? Holmes fired her agent and publicist and began having Scientology employees present at her interviews. There was the sound of the ultrasound machine and speculation that Holmes had to have a silent birth. But more pressingly, was she even pregnant? The rumors quickly got out of control, so much so that they hid baby Suri for months after her birth in April 2006.
However, in October 2006, the baby made her world debut in Vanity Fair. And the couple publicly confirmed they had set a wedding date. When Cruise, who has been married twice before, and Holmes were ready to say “I do” on November 18 of this year, the world followed eagerly. The guest list included A-listers Jennifer Lopez, David and Victoria Beckham, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, and was a who’s who of Scientology (church leader David Miscavige was Cruise’s best man). Spectacle from which you can neither look away nor listen.
Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and Baby Suri leave a restaurant in Rome the night before their wedding. (Giulio Napolitano/AFP/GettyImages) (GIULIO NAPOLITANO via Getty Images)
In a bizarre twist, Brooke Shields was invited to the wedding alongside husband Chris Henchy shortly after Cruise publicly criticized her for taking antidepressants during postpartum depression. (Tony Gentile/Portal) (Tony Gentile/Portal)
Jennifer Lopez was in attendance with her then-husband Marc Anthony. (Salvatore Laporta/Getty Images) (Salvatore Laporta via Getty Images)
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith leave the Hassler Hotel before Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise’s wedding. (Salvatore Laporta/Getty Images) (Salvatore Laporta via Getty Images)
Victoria Beckham in front of the hotel before leaving for the wedding. (Salvatore Laporta/Getty Images) (Salvatore Laporta via Getty Images)
The then married couple Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey come to the wedding. (Elisabetta Villa/Getty Images) (Elisabetta Villa via Getty Images)
Jenna Elfman in Rome for her wedding. (Giampiero Sposito/Portal) (Giampiero Sposito/Portal)
The first-hand report
While the whole world watched – and crowds lined the street – it was just another day at work for the couple’s wedding photographer, Evans.
Evans recalled to Yahoo Entertainment when he – along with other wedding photographers with experience shooting celebrity weddings (he photographed Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt’s wedding in 2000) – was asked to submit their work for consideration. He had never met the future bride or groom. Cruise ended up being the one who hired him – and he was very enthusiastic about it.
“When I first met him, he was very excited to meet me,” says the author of “The Secrets of Spectacular Wedding Photography.” “It was around the time he was getting kind of bad press about the couch-jumping thing. But he was super nice. He said, “I’m so happy to meet you!” When I saw your book, I thought, That’s my type! That’s my type!’ He was excited about it. I’m meeting Tom Cruise for the first time, it’s within the first minute of us meeting, and I thought… ‘Thanks?’ I’m not good with compliments.”
Fans and media in front of the castle on November 18, 2006. (Giuseppe Cacace/Getty Images) (Giuseppe Cacace via Getty Images)
Evans and another photographer flew to Rome for the celebrations, although not on a private plane. They lived next door to the Hotel Cruise, and Holmes and her guests, about 150 in total, were there. Evans covered two days of events leading up to the wedding so he was ready for the big day.
“It seemed very real and natural to me,” he said of the mood between the bride and groom, who both wore Giorgio Armani and were sung by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. “They just seemed to be having a great time and in love. Obviously I don’t think about it [while I’m working], but you watch and see it. But then the pictures reflect it. I guess they’re actors. They might have faked it. But I just go there, do my job and photograph what I see.”
As for the celebrity guest list, he says the “wow factor” of being among a star-studded crowd quickly wears off when you’re busy capturing a couple’s big day. When we list some of the guests – like Lopez and the Smiths – he says, “It’s funny, I was like, I don’t even remember them being there.”
Holmes watches from a window as Cruise arrives at her wedding in the Italian seaside town of Bracciano. (Fabio Serino/Portal) (STRINGER Italy / Portal)
Evans says he’s learned “on the inside” of famous weddings – including Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton’s 2011 nuptials – that “the things that get reported afterward aren’t usually very accurate.” People speculate because they’re the truth And of course, because of non-disclosure agreements, “you can’t tell anyone that the flowers were pink or the cake was like that, so they all speculate, and you hear a lot of stuff that that didn’t happen.” It gives a little insight , what it must be like to be a celebrity and have no privacy. Yes, I realize they chose this job, but that is the disadvantage that comes with being a professional.”
Cruise arrives at the castle before his wedding. (Elisabetta Villa/Getty Images) (Elisabetta Villa via Getty Images)
As for the wedding photos that are released, Evans says they are never ones he would choose himself from his batch of about 3,000 to 5,000 photos taken at such an event.
“If it were up to me, even though I liked the photo of them, I would choose other pictures,” he says. “I mean, that’s kind of true of every celebrity I’ve ever met [shot].”
That’s because the magazines that buy the pictures – which People magazine did for this wedding – “want certain things: the traditional walk down the aisle, the cake photo.” These days, there aren’t the same celebrity bidding wars. Wedding photos because publishers are selling fewer and fewer magazines. And social media has ensured that stars share their own first picture directly with fans.
It’s also not lost on him that when a celebrity couple breaks up, the wedding photos are “the same pictures that are shown over and over again in the press and on the Internet,” “and that kind of tears everything apart.” So sometimes Evans isn’t so sad that the world won’t get to see some of the more beautiful and intimate moments he captures.
The decoupling
In 2012, Holmes filed for divorce from Cruise after nearly six years of marriage, in what was described as a “calculated separation.” Eleven days later, the issue was resolved in a shockingly quick divorce settlement. Holmes was given priority admission Custody of her now teenage daughter. Mother and daughter moved to New York City full-time; Cruise – who also has two children with actress Nicole Kidman – hasn’t been seen publicly with Suri in years.
Since then, the exes have spoken very little about each other, but in a lawsuit filed in 2012, when Cruise sued over a report that claimed he had “abandoned” Suri, he said “yes” when asked whether Holmes had told him one of the reasons why she left him was to protect her daughter from Scientology. He also said that Holmes had left the Church of Scientology and that Suri was not a member. Meanwhile, Holmes told Ocean Drive in 2015: “I don’t regret anything I’ve done. I learned from everything and everything somehow leads you to the next goal. I’ll just keep going.”
It’s unclear who Cruise may or may not be in a relationship with. (There are always rumors.) Holmes had a long-term relationship with actor Jamie Foxx and later dated New York restaurateur Emilio Vitolo and musician Bobby Wooten III.
The consequences
The TomKat wedding was back in the headlines this year in the wake of Remini’s lawsuit against Scientology.
The “King of Queens” actress, who left the organization in 2013 and has become a vocal critic, claimed she has been “followed, monitored, harassed, threatened and intimidated” since her departure. The lawsuit mentioned Cruise multiple times for claiming her life as a Scientologist changed after his “wedding of the century.” The church called its lawsuit “ridiculous” and “frivolous.”
Remini’s claims included her asking where best man Miscavige’s wife, Shelly, was, which caused a stir. She also claimed that she observed other behavior at the wedding “that raised red flags,” including unethical contact between various Scientology leaders and others at the wedding, and when she spoke about it, she was reprimanded. As a result, she claimed she was held in a Scientology facility for four months after the wedding. She also claimed she had to make amends to the newlyweds by donating money to name a seat in a theater after Suri.
Leah Remini leaves a pre-wedding dinner with Marc Anthony. (Salvatore Laporta/Getty Images) (Salvatore Laporta via Getty Images)
Remini claimed back in 2015 that her invitation to the wedding came with a request to invite her celebrity friends to attend, including her best friend Lopez and Lopez’s then-husband Marc Anthony. She said the church wanted to recruit her. (Lopez denied being a Scientologist, but said her father was one.) She also claimed that baby Suri was once crying on the bathroom floor and no one picked her up. Remini said at the time that Holmes accused her of “disrupting the party” and submitted a report about her to the church.
While the church has denied Remini’s claims, Holmes said at the time: “I regret having upset Leah in the past and wish her only the best for the future.”