Facebook founding president Sean Parker married singer-songwriter Alexandra Lenas in a lavish ceremony in California.
Photographed in the story-book forest surroundings of Big Sur, California, the $10 million wedding took place in front of 300 friends and family members and the theme has been compared by many to the HBO show, Game of Thrones.
The Internet entrepreneur, who is estimated to be worth $2 billion, is now officially hitched to the mother of his young daughter after his wedding at the swanky Ventana Inn & Spa.
The ceremony and reception featured opulent decorations including a ruin, a waterfall and long feast style tables.
“Forget what you heard about Sean Parker’s wedding,” friend John Perry Barlow tweeted following the ceremony.
“It [was] elegant, tasteful, and magical.”
They “have just been enormously generous to their friends. We are all very grateful”, he wrote.
Alexandra Lenas, 24, wore a dress that appears similar to Daenerys Targaryen from the Game of Thrones.
Sean Parker, 33, is believed to have shelled out $10 million to turn a boutique hotel into what looks like a movie set, equipped with outfits for guests designed by the costume designer for the Lord of the Rings movies.
One source told the New York Post that guests “entered down a long trail and came to a big gate and entered this other world in a forest there … They made the forest come alive”.
The ceremony was officiated by Unitarian Universalist minister John A. Buehrens.
The extensive guest list included Sting and his wife Trudie, Allison Williams, Emma Watson, Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, Perry and Etty Farrell and Lucian Grainge.
Jacqueline Laurita, from the Real Housewives of New Jersey, also attended the event and shared photographs of the lavish hotel on Twitter.
“Words cannot even describe how beautiful the wedding I went to yesterday was,” she gushed.
“Nothing like I’ve ever seen. I felt like I was in a fairy [tale].”
The political world was represented by California Attorney General Kamela Harris, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Newark Mayor Cory Booker.
Alexandra Lenas’ gown was by Elie Saab, while Sean Parker, the couple’s infant daughter Winter Victoria and the guests were dressed by Academy Award-winning costume designer Ngila Dickson.
Designer Ken Fulk, caterer Paula LeDuc and designer Preston Bailey, who designed the flowers, all helped coordinate the massive affair. Mark Seliger was the photographer.
Guests enjoyed cake from Perfect Endings as well as music by Loreena McKennitt and The Good The Bad and The Ginger.
Sean Parker had previously denied the Game of Thrones theme on his Twitter account, but admitted they would be instructing guests on what to wear.
“Just because we don’t trust our guests to dress themselves properly doesn’t mean we want them to look like #GoT characters,” he wrote in April.
“Academy award winning costume designer Ngila Dickson is creating gorgeous, inspiring, and unique designs that are both modern and whimsical.”
Sean Parker hired a landscaping company to build fake ruins, waterfalls, man made ponds, bridges and a gated cottage in the surrounding woods at the hotel, sources told TMZ in April.
The venue included two terraces that are used for weddings, that offer “privacy and an uninterrupted 50-mile view of the Big Sur coastline to the south”, according to its website.
The Inn boasts its design is mean to “complement nature and encourage guests to experience the essence of romance”.
Residents in the California community have been less than thrilled with the attention Parker’s spectacle has attracted.
The California Coastal Commission reportedly was called in to investigate whether the inn had procured the proper permits for the wedding-related construction, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
“We’re pretty used to celebrities being in Big Sur. But for this one, they’ve basically built a movie set to have their wedding,” Stan Russell, head of the city’s chamber of commerce, told the paper.
Stan Russell said the construction will go away after the Saturday bash and expects the attention the town receives could actually help the wedding industry in the city.
“The wedding planners in Big Sur are planning ahead for 2014 already, because they’re booked. People want to come and see what all of the excitement’s about,” Stan Russell said.
Guests were expected to enter through a $600,000 gate, dance on a $350,000 floor and walk past more than $1 million worth of plants and flowers, the gossip website site.
The New York Post reported that the save-the-date cards for the June 1 wedding look like wizard scrolls.
“There is a chance the wedding could end up looking like an episode of Game of Thrones,” an insider told the Post.
Game of Thrones is a popular Medieval fantasy TV show on HBO that features knights and dragons and sorcery.
Sean Parker is worth an estimated $2 billion after becoming the founder of Napster and other tech start-ups and working with Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg during the early days of the social network.
The internet guru is most famous for his portrayal in the movie Social Network, which details the role he played in the beginnings of Facebook. Justin Timberlake played him in the Oscar-winning movie.
Sean Parker proposed to Alexandra Lenas, a singer-songwriter, in February, after she gave birth to the couple’s daughter, Winter Victoria Parker.
