Nicole Richie sold her wedding (photos) to People Magazine. But People was already planning a 2010 wrap-up issue. So they stuck her in the corner. I wonder if that affected the price.

Nicole of course married Joel Madden. Joel Madden used to date Hilary Duff. Hilary Duff sold her wedding to OK! Magazine for $1 million. I doubt that Nicole received a million for hers. But then again, as part of the deal, Duff had to let OK! take cheesy pictures of her and Mike Comrie on their honeymoon for a follow-up. Gross, right?

This business of the wedding and baby sales is tacky as sh-t, even if they claim, as Nicole does, and the Brange always do, that they’ll be giving away the proceeds to charity. Why don’t they MATCH the proceeds with their own money for charity? It doubles the donation. I’ve been bitching about this for too long. So I’ll move on to the fact that just because they don’t actually pocket the cash doesn’t mean they don’t benefit. The benefits come by way of exposure and public interest and, of course, popularity. Which quickly, very quickly, becomes profit in the form of marketing/endorsement deals, special appearances, clothing contracts, and more.

Either way, you’re leveraging your “private moments” for eventual gain. And when all the manoeuvring and planning for the sake of “privacy” really ends up just being in service of protecting the value of the photographs, you can shut the f-ck up then about people getting all nosy too up in your business.

As for the wedding itself – there was an elephant and 3 Marchesa dresses, one of them is attached. Now you know how I feel about Marchesa. And on anyone else I would have been repulsed by the giant cotton ball. On Nicole Richie though...somehow it works.

People Magazine will have several pages of exclusive wedding details with photos in their new issue.