Year In Review: 2011 Country Weddings
Kellie Pickler and Kyle Jacobs jetted off to a private island in the Caribbean for their January 1 wedding. Originally planning a large event for their special day, Kellie and Kyle decided that they were getting too wrapped up in the planning process and thus opted for a small, intimate wedding instead. Sharing that the only ones present at the wedding were the bride and groom, the minister, and God, Kellie said “I can’t think of a word that can quite describe how perfect it was.”
January 1 was also the happy day for country superstar Shania Twain. Shania married Frederic Thiebaud in front of 40 guests at a private mansion in Puerto Rico to ring in the new year. Guests were reportedly treated to a private fireworks display on the eve of the wedding, as well as a performance by Shania at the reception.
On April 22, guests arrived to celebrate the engagement of LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian, but were surpised to find out that they were actually attending the couple’s wedding! Among the 40 guests at the nuptials were Eddie’s two sons, Mason and Jake.
After a 5-year courtship, country sweethearts Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton married in her home state of Texas on May 14. Wearing her mother’s wedding dress and a pair of custom made cowboy boots, Miranda walked down the aisle towards her groom in front of fellow country stars Reba McEntire, Lady Antebellum‘s Charles Kelly, Dierks Bentley, Chris Young, and Martina McBride (just to name a few!) The Sheltos honeymooned outside of Cancun, Mexico at Reba’s vacation home.
A private residence in Connecticut was the setting for Chely Wright’s August 20 wedding to Lauren Blitzer, her girlfriend of over one year. The couple celebrated in front of 200 guests with a DJ and a bbq at the reception. Wright, a vegetarian, confessed that having meat served at the reception was not her idea! “Lauren’s idea – not my influence!,” she said.
Randy Houser and his bride, Jessa Lee Yantz, picked Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic for the site of their September 2 wedding. The two wed in front of 20 close friends and family and recited vows that they had written for one another. Guests were in for a special treat as the bride and groom sang an a cappella version of ‘Have I Told You Lately That I Love You’ after the ceremony.
What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas! Sunny Sweeney and her longtime boyfriend, Jeff Hellmer, were married at the famous Little White Chapel in Las Vegas on November 11. Surrounded by family and friends, the couple held a Vegas-themed recption after the nuptials.
“There’s More To Me Than You” singer Jessica Andrews got married on the same day as Sunny, using the hugely popular 11/11/11 date for her wedding day. Jessica married her boyfriend of almost 10 years, songwriter Marcel Chagnon. The two live in Music City and hope to start a family within the next three years.
Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles surprised fans when she announced that she had gotten married to her boyfriend of two years, Justin Miller, on November 26. Justin appeared in Sugarland’s video for “Want To” back in 2006 and had been dating Jennifer for two years prior to their wedding. The ceremony took place in a chapel at the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Tennesee in front of a small group of family and friends, including Jennifer’s bandmate Kristian Bush.
