The date: April 30th, 1988.
The bride and groom: Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks, who are famously Still Married, and who originally met on Bosom Buddies when he was married to his college sweetheart, and then were reunited on the set of the 1985 John Candy movie Volunteers, when he was, uh, still married. But not for long! (I have no idea of the actual timeline there but the official story is that his marriage was not in good shape, and Tom and his first wife were definitely legally separated before he and Rita began publicly dating. Regardless, these two are obviously the real deal, as you can see from this Salute To Them that Heather wrote last year upon the occasion of their anniversary.)
The place: Their wedding reception at what Informative Caption called Rex’s, but which I assume is actually the famed Rex il Ristorante, which you probably know from being in Pretty Woman and which was a very hot spot for fancy and expensive weddings and shindigs in Los Angeles for many years.
The dress: AMAZING. Rita, god bless you for going full “November Rain” for your reception, despite the fact that “November Rain” came out in 1992 and thus perhaps Guns N Roses was going full Rita Wilson. (Especially given that the “November Rain” video was filmed literally two blocks away from Rex.) As far as I can tell from the internet, she did not wear this to the church and in fact, wore a very classic gown for the ceremony — but having said that, I am having a very hard time actually sourcing that photo. I think it’s originally from Tom Hanks’s social media? Tom and Rita had a big anniversary party, however, and the cardboard stand-ups they made of themselves are of THESE looks. Which is hilarious and which also makes me consider this, canonically, Rita Wilson’s wedding gown.
The shoes: Check ‘em out:
Mazel tov and happy anniversary, you two crazy kids.
This post originally ran on April 15th, 2021, but it seemed worth a visit to the archives in case you missed it the first time!
