Karl Stefanovic says he wants privacy, but has Craziest Big Fat Wedding ever

Karl Stefanovic has repeatedly pleaded for privacy over his personal life. But his three-day party wedding featuring Mexican marines with machine guns seems at odds with his wish for the quiet life, writes Susie O’Brien.

TV host Karl Stefanovic has repeatedly pleaded for privacy over his personal life.

His wedding to Jasmine Yarbrough was to be a “private, family and friends’ affair”, he said. A real “family wedding”.

He’s said they chose to have their wedding in Los Cabos in Mexico because it ensured “solitude” and gave them “a bubble”. And then they had the craziest Big Fat Wedding ever.

The event held at the exclusive One & Only Palmilla resort involved a three-day party in the famous billionaires’ playground. It featured Mexican marines with machine guns and a wedding party with no less than 16 people in it, including seven bridesmaids in seven matching dresses.

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Karl, who famously once sported the same suit for a year, wore Tom Ford and his bride wore a never-ending array of top-name designer dresses.

Karl Stefanovic and Jasmine Yarbrough’s wedding photos. Picture: Supplied

The wedding dress, which has been unfairly mocked for looking like a mullet hairdo, had sleeves and a train that came off for the party. It was a bespoke Jess Andreatta gown “which featured soft blush tulle undertones and hand-sewn Aztec motifs beaded over lace to fit with the Mexican setting”.

Celebrity guests invited included James Packer, Shane Warne and Alan Jones (none of whom actually went), former foreign minister Julie Bishop, the Nine crew and a bunch of lesser-known fashion bloggers and reality-TV contestants.

The three-day party included welcome drinks, a service in a church (even though they were already legally married) and a beach party under a giant electric spider web. As the weekend wore on, events took a bizarre turn, with reporters being turfed out of their hotel rooms, drones with cameras flying overhead and snappers hiding in the bushes.

The guests were given maracas to shake during the ceremony, the bride chose the bridesmaid’s dresses only last week and Jasmine wasn’t a bridezilla but a “bridechilla”. The bar even had a special Bundaberg Rum limited-edition mix made in their honour — a nod to the Queensland roots of both Karl and Jasmine.

I’ve never been to a “family wedding” like that. But what can you expect from this pair, who already had a lavish and high-profile engagement party and a separate commitment ceremony?

So much for privacy. It seems to me the whole event was a massive media spectacle, with guests continually posting party snaps and the wedding party posing for photos before the actual service.

Pete Stefanovic and Sylvia Jeffreys in Mexico. Picture: @tblack81/Instagram

There was even an Instagram hashtag #letsgetfizzykarl with lots of celebrity guests posting photos of themselves looking fabulous.

We already know too much about this couple: the fact that they bonded over hot chilli sauce, and both love Queensland, german shepherds and Bundy and Coke.

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Karl has criticised others for writing stories about his love life, but has posted endless snaps of him and his wife together, usually getting ready for fancy celebrity events. It’s a far cry from his previous status as a daggy devoted family man wearing an Akubra and Birkenstocks to barbecues.

I understand the shock Karl has felt in being the subject of intense public interest: people (like me) have judged him endlessly, for his actions and his choices. Ending a marriage — even if it wasn’t a happy one — after 21 years will always attract criticism, especially when there are children involved.

Choosing a woman 10 years younger further fuelled the age-old notion that his former wife, Cassandra, was traded in for a younger model. It didn’t help that Jasmine was a former model who was continually photographed in stunning designer creations.

Karl Stefanovic, Jasmine Yarbrough and Tim Blackwell Picture: @tblack81/Instagram

Women in the suburbs identified much more strongly with stay-at-home mum Cassandra than Jasmine, a high-end shoe designer.

But it didn’t help that Cassandra recently criticised people (like Jasmine) who live fashionable lives. “(Life) is not a fashion show, it’s not a competition. It is not a competition on going out and dressing up,” she said.

“How I turn up to pick up my kids from school that day depends on what I have been doing. I might have been cleaning toilets, we all do it.”

She’s denied her comments were a dig at the newlyweds, but I don’t believe it.

Cassandra, who is set to appear on Dancing With The Stars, has spoken continually to the media, revealing in great detail her shock and heartache at the sudden departure of her former husband.

The whole unsavoury episode has affected the ratings for Channel 9’s flagship show, Today, which relied more than ever on Karl after the departure of Lisa Wilkinson.

Stefanovic’s new glamorous life and high-profile fashionista wife are unlikely to change his situation. It might be different if there weren’t three kids and a scorned ex-wife in the background. The wedding extravaganza might have been everything Jasmine dreamed of, but it didn’t seem fitting for a middle-aged man with kids who’s just been through a brutal — and public — breakup.

Karl has said the pair now “want to get on quietly with life”.

That doesn’t seem likely.

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist

@susieob