James Weir: Karl’s Cabo wedding extravaganza burns out before it even blazed

It was supposed to be an over-the-top extravaganza. But this is the truth about Karl Stefanovic’s wedding to Jasmine, writes James Weir.

OPINION

Much like your cousin’s 21st birthday bash and the media career of the “how bow dah” girl, today’s glitzy Cabo wedding of Karl Stefanovic to Jasmine Yarbrough has fizzled and faded before it even blazed.

The over-the-top luxury extravaganza, intended to be a three-day crescendo to mark a whirlwind love affair that has seen the host’s star power plummet, hasn’t had the punch it was supposed to pack.

Can a two-year relationship be classed as a whirlwind? Who knows. Probably not. But for some reason this romance feels like a whirlwind.

Anyway, the wedding has been spoilt by hype and flurry – the kind that are unavoidable when a celebrity decides to get married at a legendary Hollywood hotspot.

Related: Sentimental tribute at Karl’s wedding

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Like Cabo itself – the opulent playground for the world’s ridiculously rich and famous perched on the edge of the rough and rocky Mexican desert where poverty and violence are just blocks away – the three-day affair of next-level luxury has been forced.

The names on the guest list got bigger and more bizarre as today neared. James Packer! Julie Bishop! Shane Warne?

While part of us hoped that Julie would be seated next to Shane at every event across the weekend in the hope he’d accidentally spill guacamole on one of her Armani blazers thus igniting a weird grudge she’d hold against him for years, another part of us wondered why this whole shebang was orchestrated to be a spectacle.

(L-R) Elisa Pointon (Karl's sister), her daughter Evee, Karl Stefanovic, Peter Stefanovic, Sylvia Jeffreys, Jenna Stefanovic & Tom Stefanovic. The family is pictured at the One & Only Palmilla resort in Los Cabos, Mexico.

A picture of Jasmine Yarbrough pictured at the rehearsal dinner the night before her wedding to Karl Stefanovic. Picture: Instagram @mikeybaruch

Karl and Jasmine have become that annoying couple you know who decide to have a destination wedding in some inconvenient and expensive location you’d never choose to go. That couple who demand all their friends and family to abandon their own lives and part with their life savings and use up all their annual leave to come celebrate them. Destination weddings fuel bitter resentments in all friendship groups.

And not all Karl and Jasmine’s wedding guests can afford to stay at the couple’s resort of choice - the One&Only Palmilla, a lush paradise where Jennifer Aniston goes to apply Avene while laying on a day bed and Oprah goes to do things billionaires do.

It’s not just any resort. Forget the mud huts on the Gold Coast your parents used to make you spend your Christmas holidays in. At this joint, every room has an ocean view and each guest has their own personal butler, because to have one without the other is just stupid.

Karl Stefanovic and his fiance Jasmine Yarbrough pictured at the One & Only Palmilla resort in Los Cabos, Mexico.

Karl and Jasmine pictured with Karl's mother Jenny at the One & Only Palmilla resort in Los Cabos, Mexico.

Keeping up with the Stefanovics isn’t easy and some groups of friends have been forced to slum it down the road at the Hilton.

“I’m all set for the Studio 54 party!” one of these guests said to another after checking into the far less star-studded resort. “Got my all-white suit.”

Not to speculate, but I think it’s this Studio 54 party that made Packer rethink his attendance. He was all set to go and be best man until, just days ago, reports surfaced he’d pulled out. The only thing worse than a costume party is having to do novelty group disco choreography while at a costume party. Of course Packer preferred the idea of staying home alone at his Argentinian ranch.

What made it even more awkward is he couldn’t just say he was short on cash so he blamed his mum’s birthday which she already celebrated with a bash weeks ago.

The only thing worse than a costume party is having to do novelty group disco choreography while at a costume party.

Sure, the guest-list was still stunt-cast with a weird name or two – a J-Bish here and a Warnie there, a random sports reporter from Channel 9. But news of Packer’s no-show was a clear sign this thing was about to be a let down.

Instead of trying to be big and bold, small and intimate would’ve been more impressive this weekend. A guest list of close friends and family rather than that 20-something model Jordan Barrett who reportedly made the cut. Seriously, it’s one in the morning, Night Fever is playing over the sound system for the seventh time and Karl, J-Bish and Jordan are standing around the tequila bar in identical white flares – what do they talk about?

“It’s a bizarre thing to happen,” one of the pals slumming it down at the Hilton was overheard saying to another while sipping sugar-free margaritas three nights before the big day. She wasn’t referring to the Studio 54 party, though her statement applies to that too. Instead, she was musing about the media attention surrounding the wedding. “But now she (Jasmine) is used to it.”

Richard Wilkins son, Christian, is on the guest list, too.

On the surface, some may shrug and say the getaway was an attempt at a private wedding. After all, Karl’s on the other side of the world.

But this wasn’t an attempt to be private or a desperate escape from the spotlight. It was a leap into it while doing the splits and waving jazz hands.

If Margot Robbie can get married on some farm in Byron Bay without any of us knowing, so too can the Stefanovics.

How bow dah.

Picture: Tristan Houghton

THE FAR SUPERIOR ROYAL FEUD

Karl and Jasmine’s big day might be getting treated like it’s the royal wedding, but over at Kensington Palace they’ve got problems far bigger than how to convince a Mexican resort to replace its tequila bar with a Bundaberg rum bar.

There’s a mole inside the palace. And they’re spilling all the tea.

For weeks, stories about a Kate and Meghan feud has gripped the headlines. It seems absurd and usually we’d just roll our eyes and groan, “New Idea? More like no idea!” as if no one had ever said that before. But this story is growing every day with new details emerging and because it’s the end of the year and TV shows are ending, we need a narrative to follow so we’re going to believe it.

Kate and Meghan are feuding.

Tension...Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle.

So who’s the mole? No names yet. I’m not saying it is the queen but I also don’t think it’s wise to rule anyone out.

While I’m interested in any and all feuds, I do think this one is rather boring. They’re probably just fighting over who gets the good Royal Doulton collection when all the old people die and then Meghan probably called Kate’s hemlines prudish, which they are.

To be honest, the decades-long war that has been raging between Prince Philip and Fergie is far superior. What on earth caused a 105-year-old man to wage a bitch fight against a divorced middle-aged mother-of-two? We’ll never really know. We just hope it ends in hair pulling.

Twitter and Facebook: @hellojamesweir