A look back at year’s celeb weddings, break-ups & babies

Every year there are big celebrity bashes, cute new Hollywood offspring and ugly public splits, 2011 was no exception. It was a year that saw historic matches that will change the face of European royalty and a year that also shows that not all matches in Hollywood were built to last. Here is a look at some of the highlights from 2011.

The Weddings:

Prince William and Kate Middleton
          
Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton married at Westminster Abbey on April 29 in a sumptuous show of British pageantry that attracted a huge world audience and injected new life into the monarchy. Before a flawless exchange of vows, a veiled Middleton wearing a laced dress with a long train, the first “commoner” to marry a prince in close proximity to the throne in more than 350 years, walked slowly through the 1,900-strong congregation.

Middleton’s dress, the subject of fevered speculation for months in the fashion press, was a traditional ivory silk and satin outfit with a lace appliqué and train designed by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen. Just weeks after the wedding, the newly crowned Duke and Duchess of Cambridge toured the Southern California region playing in polo matches, interacting with inner city kids and wining and dining with British celebs in the U.S.

Prince Albert and Charlene Wittstock
          
Prince Albert of Monaco married a South African Olympic swimmer, Charlene Wittstock, in a modest civil ceremony on July 1, followed by a lavish church wedding in the small Mediterranean state a day later. The wedding is the first of a ruling prince in Monaco since Albert’s father, Prince Rainier III, married Hollywood star Grace Kelly in 1956. Rainier transformed Monaco from a faded gambling center into a billionaires’ haven, using his marriage to Kelly to infuse the tiny principality with film-star glamour.

Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell
          
Paul McCartney married for the third time on Oct. 9, exchanging vows with American heiress Nancy Shevell at the same London register office where the former Beatle wed his first wife Linda in 1969. Shevell, 51, wore a knee-length, long-sleeved white dress which reports said was designed by McCartney’s fashion designer daughter Stella. The bride also had a white flower in her hair and carried a small posy of roses, while Hey Jude singer McCartney wore a dark suit and light blue tie. One newspaper had a headline saying: “Yes-today”, in a reference to the famous Beatles song. The 69-year-old McCartney held a modest civil ceremony before a small group of family and friends.

Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz
          
Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, who star as a married couple in the 2011 film, Dream House, tied the knot in a secret wedding ceremony in New York. The low-key ceremony on June 22 reportedly had just four people present.

Kate Moss and Jamie Hince
          
British supermodel Kate Moss married her rocker boyfriend Jamie Hince on July 1 in a small English country church, accompanied by 15 bridesmaids. Moss, 37, and Hince, 42, a guitar player with The Kills, posed for photos outside the church in the village of Southrop in southern England, after the ceremony. It was the first marriage for the British model, who met Hince in 2007. Moss wore a sleeveless, full-length, white wedding dress designed by her close friend John Galliano and covered in rhinestones.

Reese Witherspoon and Jim Toth
          
Reese Witherspoon married talent agent Jim Toth in Ojai, California on March 26. The 35-year-old bride wore a pink Monique Lhuillier gown and her 11-year-old daughter Ava was the maid of honour. Her seven-year-old son Deacon was the ring bearer.

Robin Williams and Susan Schneider

Robin Williams married his girlfriend Susan Schneider in Napa Valley, the section of northern California known for wine and romance, on Oct. 22. The 60-year-old Oscar-winning comedian met Schneider in 2009, after she helped nurse him back to health following surgery to a faulty heart valve. It is his third marriage.

Sofia Coppola and Thomas Mars
          
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sofia Coppola and her longtime musician boyfriend, Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars, were married on Aug. 27 in the Italian village that was home to Coppola’s grandparents. Coppola and Mars were wed in a civil ceremony before 80 guests at the Coppola family’s villa in the southern Italian town of Bernalda.
     
Wearing a custom lavender gown by Azzedine Alaia, the 40-year-old bride walked down the aisle on the arm of her father, Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola, who owns the estate. Coppola and rocker Mars, 34, have two daughters: Romy, 4-1/2, and Cosima, 15 months.
          
Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed

KISS frontman Gene Simmons and his girlfriend of 28 years, the actress and former Playmate Shannon Tweed, married on Oct. 1. The Israeli-born Simmons, 62, and the Canadian-born Tweed exchanged vows they wrote themselves.

Simmons, who’d vowed he would never marry, shocked fans in July when he proposed to Tweed on A&E’s Gene Simmons Family Jewels. Tweed appeared in Playboy magazine in the 1980s and had a number of starring roles in low-budget thrillers and adventure movies such as Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death and Scorned.

Lily Allen and Sam Cooper
          
British singer Lily Allen tied the knot with decorator and business owner Sam Cooper on June 11. The pair were married at St. James the Great Church in Gloucestershire, England. The 26-year-old bride wore a French designer gown by Delphine Manivet, featuring lace sleeves and a fishtail skirt. Allen and Cooper also welcomed a baby girl on Nov. 25.

The Babies:

Beyonce and Jay-Z
          
Superstar Beyonce let pictures tell the story of a baby on the way for her and rapper husband Jay-Z at the MTV Video Music Awards on Aug. 28. The singer, whose hits include Beautiful Liar and Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it), appeared onstage to perform her song Love On Top, telling the audience to stand up. At the end of her song, she took off her jacket, smiled broadly and rubbed her tummy. In the audience, her husband and rapper Jay-Z was congratulated by his friend and collaborator Kanye West and he gave Beyonce a big wave. She and Jay-Z began dating in 2002 and were married in April 2008.

David and Victoria Beckham
          
David and Victoria Beckham welcomed a new baby girl into the world, adding a daughter to the three sons they already have in their growing family. The newest addition to the family, Harper Seven Beckham, was born on July 10.
     
The Beckhams have three sons, Brooklyn is 12 years old, Romeo, 8, and Cruz, 6.

Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied
          
Actress Natalie Portman gave birth to a baby boy fathered by a choreographer she met while film her Oscar-winning role in Black Swan. The baby was born in mid-July.  Portman announced in December 2010 that she was pregnant and planned to marry her boyfriend, French ballet dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied.  In Black Swan Portman played a self-mutilating ballerina, a role which netted her an Academy Award in February.

Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon
          
Singer Mariah Carey and husband Nick Cannon named their new twin babies Moroccan and Monroe. The pair—a boy and a girl—were born in a Los Angeles hospital on April 30, on the couple’s third wedding anniversary. The babies are the first for Carey, 41, and comedic actor Cannon, 30, who married in 2008.

Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy
          
French first lady Carla Bruni gave birth to a baby girl on Oct. 19, her first child with husband French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the first baby born to a French presidential couple in office. His daughter’s birth coincided with one of the most crucial weeks of Sarkozy’s four-year presidency as he battled to hammer out a plan with Germany to stem the euro zone’s debt crisis. Sarkozy has three children from his two previous marriages, while Italian-born Bruni has a son from a former relationship.

Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem
          
Spanish film star Penelope Cruz gave birth to a baby boy with Oscar-winning actor husband Javier Bardem in mid January. The boy is Cruz’s first child. Her spokeswoman did not say where the birth took place, but Spanish media said earlier that he was born in a Los Angeles hospital.

Bardem, 41, earned his third Oscar nomination for his role in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s film Biutiful. The actor took home an Academy Award for his best supporting actor role in the Coen brother’s 2007 movie No Country for Old Men. Cruz, 36, won an Oscar herself for her role in Woody Allen’s 2008 movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Jessica Alba and Cash Warren
          
Actress Jessica Alba and her husband Cash Warren welcomed a baby girl on Aug. 13. Haven Garner Warren is the second daughter for the couple.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan
          
Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan gave birth to a baby girl on November 16. Rai, 38, a former Miss World, has been married to actor Abhishek Bachchan for more than four years and the star couple had been fending off baby rumors for months before the pregnancy was confirmed in June.

Hugh Grant and ?
          
Actor Hugh Grant welcomed a baby girl into his life following a brief affair with an unidentified woman, his spokeswoman said on Nov. 1. The identity of the mother was not disclosed, nor were the details of the couple’s relationship. This is the first child for the 51-year-old Bridget Jones actor.

Kate Hudson and Matt Bellamy
          
Kate Hudson and her rocker boyfriend Matt Bellamy welcomed a baby boy on July 9. The couple’s first child together was born in Los Angeles. Hudson has a seven-year-old son, called Ryder, with rocker ex Chris Robinson. The newborn is Muse frontman Bellamy’s first child.

Robert Downey Jr. and wife Susan
          
Robert Downey, Jr., star of the Iron Man movies, and his wife Susan are expecting their first child together.

The 46 year-old actor and his second wife met on the set of Gothika in 2003, and married in New York in 2005.

Bruce Willis and Emma Heming
 
Hollywood star Bruce Willis and his wife, designer and model Emma Heming, are expecting their first child together. The baby, the couple’s first child together, is due early in 2012.

Rod Steward and Penny Lancaster
   
Rod Stewart and his wife Penny Lancaster welcomed a new baby boy into the world on February 16. The son, named Aiden, is the couple’s second boy. Aiden is Stewart’s eighth child.

The Break-ups

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony
          
Singer and actress Jennifer Lopez and Latin pop singer Marc Anthony decided to end their marriage after seven years, the couple said on July 15. Lopez and Anthony, who have three-year-old twins, said they had “come to amicable conclusions on all matters.” Lopez and Anthony have a pair of fraternal twins named Emme and Max who were born in 2008. The couple performed together in a 2007 tour called Juntos en Concierto. They also worked on each other’s albums and starred opposite each other in 2006 film El Cantante. The two were married months after Lopez’s engagement to actor Ben Affleck ended, and days after Anthony’s divorce from former Miss Puerto Rico Dayanara Torres was finalized.

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher
          
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher said on Nov. 17 they were ending their marriage after six years, breaking up one of the most widely followed May-December romances Hollywood has seen. The marriage between Moore, 49, and Kutcher 33, had been in trouble since late September when a San Diego woman went public about an brief affair she had with Kutcher, a star on CBS television comedy Two and a Half Men, during a weekend of partying in the southern California city.
          
Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian filed for divorce on October 31, just 72 days after marrying basketball player Kris Humphries in a lavish wedding that was billed as a “fairytale.” Kardashian, 31, star of the TV show Keeping Up With the Kardashians, cited irreconcilable differences. Humphries later filed for an annulment.

Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds
          
Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds called it quits in December 2010 after two years of marriage, and finalized their divorce in July. Johansson, the 26-year-old star of movies such as Vicky Cristina Barcelona and He’s Just Not That Into You, married Reynolds in September 2008. The 34-year-old Canadian native, whose credits include Van Wilder and Green Lantern, was previously engaged to singer Alanis Morissette.

Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris
          
Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner, 85, was dumped by 25-year-old fiancée Crystal Harris in June, just five days before the wedding, after she got jitters about living a tightly regimented life among dozens of attractive young women at the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles.  Hefner, 85, and Crystal Harris were due to tie the knot in front of more than 300 guests at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles on June 12. It would have been Hefner’s third marriage. On the other hand, Hefner said he has been consoled by his coterie of old pals and his former wife Kimberley Conrad, and announced he would be hosting a screening of Runaway Bride.

Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger
          
Former California first lady Maria Shriver filed for divorce on July 1 from her estranged husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the ex-governor and film star who has admitted fathering a child out of wedlock more than a decade ago. Shriver, 55, a former television journalist and a daughter of the Kennedy political dynasty, filed papers seeking to dissolve her 25-year marriage to Schwarzenegger, 63, in Los Angeles County Superior Court, citing irreconcilable differences. Shriver and Schwarzenegger, the Austrian-born former bodybuilder turned Hollywood action star and politician, announced their separation in May, just four months after he left office as California governor. A week later, Schwarzenegger stunned the world by acknowledging publicly that he had fathered a child more than 10 years earlier with a member of his household staff.
     
He said then that he had revealed the affair and his out-of-wedlock child to Shriver shortly after his two terms in office ended in January.