Sadly for Getty heiress, lavish City Hall wedding (with guest Gavin Newsom) didn’t guarantee happiness

For some, it’s time for the wedding schadenfreude.

Billionaire Getty oil heiress Ivy Love Getty has filed for divorce, a little more than two years after she married photographer Tobias Engel in a lavish wedding in the rotunda of San Francisco City Hall — a spectacle that seized the attention of the world’s fashion media and made waves in Bay Area society and politics because of the presence of Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi and London Breed.

But the marriage of J. Paul Getty’s great-granddaughter wasn’t meant to last, even with a ceremony that was officiated by then-House Speaker Pelosi and witnessed by 14 bridesmaids, including “Furiosa” star Anna Taylor-Joy. In January, Getty, a 26-year-old actor, model and society philanthropist, filed for divorce from Engel in New York City, the New York Times has reported.

“It may seem weird to have such a huge wedding and then to pull the plug — but the rich are different than you and me,” a Getty family insider told the New York Post, perhaps purposefully echoing the wisdom of “The Great Gatsby” author F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Others familiar with the family also told the New York Post that the split is not the result of “the deaths, affairs and addictions which have long haunted the oil dynasty.”

Instead, they say the marriage probably was doomed because it was a “rebound” relationship that developed during the pandemic. It also followed “the almost simultaneous deaths” of Getty’s father, due to drugs, and of her beloved grandmother, San Francisco society doyenne Ann Getty, who raised the future fashion darling in the Getty mansion in Pacific Heights.

Of course, the November 2021 wedding couldn’t have been a snap decision because of all the planning needed to orchestrate the four-day extravaganza, as described in a detailed report by Vogue. The event cost who knows how much and featured multiple wardrobe changes for the bride and an elegant reception for hundreds at the Getty mansion.

For the ceremony itself, celebrity event planner Stanlee Gatti worked his magic on City Hall, Vogue explained. He and his crew hung turquoise and rose-pink velvet drapes from the archways and a “waterfall” of pale pink orchids from the grand staircase railings. The bride walked down the aisle in an haute couture gown that sparkled with mirror shards, from John Galliano for Maison Margiela.

Aside from the over-the-top extravagance, there’s another aspect of the wedding that could fuel some people’s schadenfreude and make them less sympathetic to Getty’s “pandemic relationship” plight.

The New York Times report revealed that Getty and Engel actually were already married when they exchanged vows. It turns out that the couple married in a private ceremony in 2020, some 11 months before their City Hall display.

But rather than realize their mistake sooner rather than later, the couple indulged in a growing but contentious wedding trend. They had their so-called “do-over” wedding. This is when couples elope or marry in a small, hastily arranged ceremony, but then want their big party, and the bride, especially, wants to have her “Pretty Princess Day.”

That’s seems to be the case here, when Getty’s “do-over” wedding allowed her to don a  sparkly dress, walk down the aisle with great pageantry and be the center of attention. Etiquette experts and people on wedding-related subreddits tend to frown on do-over nuptials, saying that they can turn into “ego-fests” for couples who may fail to respect the true meaning of marriage.

With the news of the divorce, people can wonder if Getty and Engel truly understood the meaning of marriage. Getty family insiders say that the model may have been using the marriage to mask personal issues, such as trying to find her own way in life while carrying a famous name.

James Reginato, author of 2022’s “Growing up Getty: The Story of America’s Most Unconventional Dynasty,” said that Getty, who is now signed with Ford Models, “was a little bit at a loss during the pandemic and looking for someone to make a life with but it clearly wasn’t meant to last.”

Reginato also suggested that Getty may have realized her mistake soon after her wedding extravaganza. “She was going out all the time in New York and London and he wasn’t in any of the press pictures of her,” Reginato said. It looks like Getty hit the 2022 and 2023 Met Galas solo.

The insider who pointed out that the rich are different tried to soften the view of Getty, saying that she’s living with a unique burden — because she’s a Getty. The insider said, “Being saddled with that kind of inheritance can make it hard for you to find your place in life and hard to really know who your friends are.”