Do you have a coworker or family member or acquaintance who has a case of Weddingitis? They talk about their wedding like it was the Met Gala and years after, they post their wedding photos on social media for every single occasion. Arbor Day? Here’s me and my beloved posing in front of a tree. Cyber Monday? Monday is two days after Saturday which is the day we got married. Given the slightest opening, they go on and on about how fun and cool and crazy their wedding day was. And you know, deep in your heart, that it was the most boring wedding of the year. This is the equivalent of the quarterback who peaked in high school. You got married. WE GET IT.
That’s the vibe I’m getting from Nicola Peltz-Beckham, who has run this story about Victoria Beckham “stealing” her first dance multiple times through multiple publications. To bring it back up now to PEOPLE as well as a Page Six follow-up, even as they’ve spent a lot of time together since the wedding (before the recent estrangement), is ludicrous. You have a window to bitch and complain and Nicola’s window has passed. Her feelings are her feelings but I think a healthy shot of “get over yourself” is needed here.
But mothers-in-law are inherently bad! If we are subscribing to social media therapy, we are supposed to always cheer for the boundary-holding daughter-in-law. No. I rebuke this.
Lainey and I have discussed the dynamics and I do think it has a lot to do with cultural norms. In many cultures, weddings are about community and family as much as the bride and groom. The bride and groom are there to cater to their guests with food, drink and a good time – they want to include their friends and families. The “it’s OUR day” doesn’t really apply in many cultures. This goes from everything to inviting children (which is, according to Reddit, against the law) to first dances. I have been to many, many weddings with a father/daughter and mother/son first dance, and sometimes it happens before the bride and groom. I know different families have different traditions but even if this dance wasn’t planned, how long can Nicola milk this story?
Then there’s the media side: this got top billing at PEOPLE yesterday, meaning Nicola has stepped up her PR game. She is hiring the best of the best because it would take a public relations group with serious connections to get this story to run. Her team went with the safe choice in PEOPLE. The subsequent Page Six story has more detail and is more gossipy; according to those sources, Victoria is “mystified” by this drama because Brooklyn and Nicola had not one, but two, first dances. (Side note: there can only be one first dance, by definition. It’s the first one, everything else after it is not first.) A Peltz-Beckham source claims that those two dances happened before the outfit changes and the band started. The sources went on to say that “everyone in the room witnessed what happened” and it was a big deal OK? The biggest deal ever and don’t tell her it’s not a big deal because it IS a big deal.
The anecdote isn’t even that damning to Victoria because it was Marc Anthony who apparently called Victoria the most beautiful woman in the room. Does Nicola understand this isn’t literal? It wasn’t about physical beauty, it was about celebrating their family. It was a performance. How is that Victoria’s fault? Then the PEOPLE source makes a point in to say it was a “romantic” dance. Huh? Is this Footloose?
I think the bigger story with Nicola’s wedding is that she had massive issues with her wedding planners and she and her mother were, allegedly, nightmares. They then tried to sue the wedding planners with their billions of dollars from their crusty old fart patriarch Nelson and were countersued and backed down. (Kind of like what happened with Disney!) A billionaire suing a wedding planner for a deposit just days before the wedding, after months of work has been done – think about that. And to add to it, the feedback on David and Victoria throughout the process is that they were polite, organized and easy to work with.
So if we’re talking about issues with the wedding, what is the real deal here: did Nicola ruin her own day by being disorganized, controlling and over-the-top, or did Victoria ruin it by dancing with her son?
Keep in mind this is the third or fourth story the Peltz-Beckhams have tried to sell us: there was the wedding drama (which included snarky comments about Victoria as a designer), then it was about Romeo’s girlfriend, then it was about David shouting at Brooklyn, then it was that they tried to see David in the UK and he wouldn’t. But now we are told the real issue is the first dance (not to be confused with the other first dances.)
This story is thin, it’s tired, and frankly, I have yet to come across anyone who is sympathetic to Brooklyn and Nicola. It was fine when they were just a little dim and harmless but now they seem malicious, particularly towards Victoria. They’re presumably using her family money to call in favours to every outlet possible and make their family issues our business. One thing Nicola’s totally-amazing-wonderful-incredible family hasn’t taught her is that wealth does not equal popularity. If it did, her dad would be CEO of Disney. He doesn’t even have a board seat.
