STV News presenter John MacKay reflects on 25 years since Madonna married film director Guy Ritchie in a small town in the Scottish Highlands
It’s two minutes until the end of our live STV News broadcast.
I have been waiting in vain for the appearance of global superstar Madonna at the cathedral in Dornoch where she will be married the following day.
STV NewsI am prattling about the crowds, the star guests who are expected, but what I haven’t been able to talk about is the appearance of Madonna herself.
And then a large black Mercedes appears in an explosion of flashlights. I see blonde hair in the back seat.
“Yes, that’s Madonna arriving,” I declare to the hundreds of thousands of STV viewers.
Getty Images“She’s sitting in the passenger seat at the back and we’ll see her come out in a moment.”
Instead, rock star Sting emerges from the car with his wife.
“It’s not, it’s Trudie Tyler (her name is actually Styler). It’s not Madonna. It’s Sting and his wife Trudie Tyler (still wrong), who, of course, brought the couple, Guy Ritchie and Madonna together.”
STV NewsI’d had to rapidly swot up my celebrity gossip for that sort of insight.
Inevitably, Madonna arrived literally as we went off air.
That was the chaotic fun of Madonna’s Wedding twenty-five years ago.
Or rather, the night before the wedding.
Getty ImagesThat was when she and her husband-to-be, film director Guy Ritchie, held a photo opportunity at Dornoch Cathedral.
The wedding itself was in lockdown with a complete media blackout.
One photographer was arrested after hiding in the organ in the cathedral.
STV NewsI spent a dreich day along with the world’s media, hovering outside Skibo Castle, where the wedding party was held.
Such was the tedium I began to tell the nation the gossip of who might be attending.
“Brad Pitt was apparently spotted buying a packet of fags down in Inverness. Nobody has seen him since. George Clooney apparently stayed very quietly in Bonar Bridge. He was buying a packet of fags as well, so there’s going to be a lot of smoking going on.”
STV NewsThe whole event was a classic example of Madonna’s manipulation of the media.
That was possible in the pre-social media age.
The memories have lasted longer than the marriage did.
But for a couple of days twenty-five years ago a small Highland town was at the centre of the world of showbiz.
And I still don’t know whether Brad Pitt or George Clooney actually did attend, cigarettes or not.
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