Do You Remember: Mariah Carey's Princess Diana-Inspired Wedding to Her Gross Manager

When you're famous, your first wedding is the practice run. It's the one where you get to put on the biggest show, spend the most money, and make it into the flashiest performance of your career thus far. Consider Elizabeth Taylor's first wedding, a full-blown MGM production that doubled as a savvy promotional tool for its beloved child star all grown up. Some celebs only do it once and make it count, like Celine Dion and her cavalcade of lace and crystals. For Mariah Carey, at the tender age of 24, her first wedding was an extravagant affair that paid homage to the most famous nuptials of the decade before. And like that union, hers was a big mistake involving a total jerk who never deserved her.

By 1993, Mariah Carey had released two studio albums and a legendary MTV Unplugged set that had cemented her status as a once-in-a-generation vocal talent. She became the only artist to have their first five singles reach number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was yet to become a megastar diva, but it seemed inevitable. While recording her self-titled debut album, she began dating Tommy Mottola. He was the head of Columbia Records and had been the one to sign her to the company, meaning he had almost total control over her career at that point. When they met, she was only 18. He may or may not have left his first wife for her. Oh, and he was also a massive arsehole. We’ll get back to that.

(Image via YouTube. Sorry, I don’t have Getty Images access.)

In her excellent memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, she wryly noted, "The wedding was designed to be an entertainment industry spectacle." In their write-up of the occasion, People claimed that Carey "viewed videotapes of the Charles-Diana ceremony and wore a family-heirloom tiara, redesigned in the fashion of Di’s to complement" her own dress. One wonders if Carey had a family tiara lying around her house pre-wedding. I'm going to say no? But the story is clear in the parallels it wants to draw of the dashing prince and his wide-eyed young bride who was ready to become America's princess.