What do you think of that 32-year-old British airhead, Louise Harris, who blew more than R218 000 on a wedding for her Yorkshire terrier, Lola? The groom, Mugly, is a hairless Chinese Crested who was crowned Britain’s Ugliest Dog in 2005, so lovely Lola surely didn’t marry him for his looks.
The bride’s doting owner is quoted as saying, “I wanted Lola to have the perfect day. It was meant to only be a relatively small affair with 30 guests but the list just kept getting bigger and bigger because I didn’t want to leave anyone out! Lola loved being the centre of attention. My dogs are my pride and joy so nothing is too good for them.”
I’d say. The wedding marquee hire cost nearly R30 000, and Lola was dressed to the nines in an R11 000 wedding dress adorned with 1 800 Swarovski crystals, complemented by a R5 000 pearl necklace and Swarovski leg cuffs. The bridesmaid and pageboy on the day – Lola’s siblings Lulu and Larry – were equally resplendent in their custom outfits, while Mugly looked unusually dashing in a tuxedo and trilby that concealed his overall baldness.
The poor blighters won’t be allowed to enjoy the usual benefits of marriage, though, because they continue to live with their respective owners and only see each other once a month or so. “Mugly is always sending Lola gifts and pictures of himself to make up for the times they are apart,” gushed Louise. “He sends her little presents.”
My gut instinct upon reading this was a mixture of sadness and outrage at the idiocy of wasting so much money tormenting two animals who would have been happier let loose to play on the beach. Then I had a rethink. As long as money is changing hands it’s never wasted, and the dogs probably didn’t have too bad a time of it. The billions of dollars it cost the Americans to win the race to the moon were spent right here on earth, providing employment for thousands of people, and all that was left in space was burn-out junk that was outdated within months anyway.
Suddenly a good party for a couple of silly women’s pampered pooches seems like a mighty fine idea. The wedding planner, the caterers, the security guards, the doggy-clothes designers, the florist and the harpist who played the wedding march all took their money home to spend on more sensible things like beer, pizza, motorcycles and possibly even the kids’ school fees.
Lola and Mugly’s marriage won’t go down in history as 2011’s most bizarre wedding though. That honour will surely go to the pending nuptials of 84-year-old Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and his 24-year-old Playmate, Crystal Harris – not related to Mugly’s mother-in-law, we trust – at the Playboy Mansion on June 18. “It’s going to be fun,” simpered the bride-to-be in an interview. “I mean he got married once in the front yard so I asked if we could do it in the back yard.” Anywhere the neighbours can’t see will be fine, my dear.
Meanwhile, Hefner swears that this, his third marriage, will be his last. “She, you know, she deserves it,” he told ShowbizSpy. “She deserves to be my widow. I think she loves me.”
Hefner’s promised that he’s going to do everything possible and spend whatever it takes to make Crystal’s wedding day just perfect.
It would probably have been a great start to ask his grandson to stand in for him on the honeymoon, but as he doesn’t have one perhaps the kindest thing he can do is to emulate Mugly in sending her lots of “little presents” while putting in a personal appearance once a month,
at most.