This Really Was the Wedding of the Century

There are two reasons you may have heard of Madelaine Brockway and Jacob LaGrone’s wedding: because it went viral on TikTok for being wildly extravagant, or because LaGrone may be facing 25 years in prison for shooting at a police officer.

Recently, TikTok has become transfixed by this Texan couple, who got married in November after five days of lavish activities. Amid the sudden surge in attention, another factoid about these two rich kids emerged: LaGrone has been out of prison on bail since March, when he was indicted on three counts of aggravated assault. Let’s get into it.

Sorry, but who are these people?

By all appearances, Brockway and LaGrone are just a normal couple in Texas with the small caveat that at least one of them is absurdly wealthy. Per the Daily Mail, Brockway’s family runs a handful of Mercedes-Benz dealerships in Florida, two of which were sold earlier this year for $150 million. Brockway’s LinkedIn page reportedly describes her as a self-employed entrepreneur based in Fort Worth. (A profile under her name does match the Daily Mail’s description, though it’s unclear how it confirmed this was really her.) LaGrone’s online résumé is similarly mysterious — his most recent listed job was as a production assistant for country singer Jason Aldean in 2018 — and it’s not clear whether he comes from some kind of fortune or is just along for the ride. Anyway, the couple reportedly started dating in March 2020.

Why do we care about their wedding?

Brockway and LaGrone got married on November 18 at Château de Villette, a castle 40 miles outside Paris that was designed by the same architects who came up with Versailles. A few weeks before the wedding, Brockway took her friends on a four-day bachelorette trip to the Amangiri, a luxury resort hotel in Utah that costs $3,000 a night. Each night’s festivities had a different theme: According to the Daily Mail, the final evening involved Brockway dressing up as Marie Antoinette, which is a little on the nose. For entertainment, she called in a team of “lipstick readers” who can purportedly use a tube of lipstick to tell you your future. What do you think they saw?

Then came the wedding trip, which apparently lasted five days and involved a host of indulgent experiences: a private lunch in the Chanel Haute Couture Suite, where Brockway and her bridesmaids can be seen enjoying the most expensive arts-and-crafts session known to man; a sleepover at the actual Palace of Versailles; a party under the Arc de Triomphe; and a rehearsal dinner inside the Palais Garnier opera house. Of course, there’s extensive documentation of the whole thing, thanks to the small army of stylists, makeup artists, event planners, and decorators involved in every step.

The same goes for the ceremony, where Brockway wore custom Dior haute couture and the couple said their vows on a floating platform in the middle of a fountain in the Château de Villette’s sprawling gardens. One of the various wedding-planning services involved, which claimed to have spent three months building a “village” on the château’s grounds, proudly dubbed this collab the “wedding of the century,” a moniker that has really taken off online. In lieu of a regular live wedding band, the couple hired Maroon 5 (front man Adam Levine included), who sang “She Will Be Loved” for their first dance. Various publications have reported that the entire affair may have cost as much as $59 million.

Is this couple wanting for anything?

A quick perusal of their wedding registry suggests that, yes, there are (or, were) some things missing from a luxury-car heiress’s life. An $860 gravy boat, for example, or a $430 figurine of a rabbit wearing a cowboy hat, or a 19-inch butterfly house made of crystal that costs $12,500. The things I would do to discover which guest ended up buying that last one.

Sounds like normal rich-person antics. What else is new?

Just as his wedding was taking over our FYPs, LaGrone appeared in court on November 30, drawing everyone’s attention to the fact that he was facing a potential life sentence for aggravated assault.

His case stems from an incident in March, when, according to a local press release, three officers were dispatched to Westworth Village, a small suburb of Fort Worth, after receiving multiple disturbance calls about a gun going off inside someone’s home. When they got there, they say, LaGrone opened fire on them. No injuries are mentioned in the release, but the groom was arrested that night and released on a $20,000 bond. In August, LaGrone was indicted on three counts of aggravated assault on a public servant, which is a first-degree felony. His potential sentence ranges anywhere between under five years to life in prison, and he’s reportedly been offered a plea deal of 25 years.

As far as we can tell, the hearing he attended in November didn’t involve any major developments in his case.

What is Madelaine up to while her husband goes to court?

Brockway did not appear with her new husband at the hearing, and she has understandably deleted both her Instagram and TikTok accounts. Thankfully, evidence of her megawedding remains in internet circulation. I’ve never been more thankful for a luxury-event content creator in my life.