Celine Dion was an unforgettable bride when she married her late husband, René Angélil, in 1994.
The then 26-year-old wore a silk princess-style dress by Mirella and Steve Gentile that featured long sleeves, a fitted waist, and a 20-foot train made up of lace and crystals.
She styled her hair in an elegant updo and wore a statement headdress covered with 2,000 Swarovski crystals which weighed almost seven pounds and had to be sewn onto her head.
However, while her statement accessory looked beautiful, it left Celine with a huge cut on her head that required a visit to the doctor following her wedding day.
Celine recalled wearing the weighty headpiece during an interview with Vogue, revealing she blocked out the pain to experience the joy of marrying René.
“No problem, I can manage the weight. And when you’re so happy, there’s no weight, there’s no problem, there’s no pain,” she said.
“We kind of rehearsed one time with the dress and the big veil and all that, and it was in a big ballroom and it was all made of like beautiful wooden floors.
“I practice and everything is smooth and everything is fine, but when I had to walk the cathedral, it has no wooden floor, it’s carpet. I had an immediate facelift.”
She continued: “I start to walk and… it’s like, ‘Am I gonna make it? Am I gonna make it to my future husband?’… I did, so all night, all great, people happy.”
However, when it came time to remove the headpiece, Celine was shocked by what she saw.
“But when we removed that tiara, I had a cut because the pressure was too much. The next day I wake up, I look at myself in the mirror, I have the size of an egg in the middle of my forehead,” she explained.
“I look at my husband and I said, ‘Ha, it’s too late now, we’re married’. But it’s so huge… I’m like, okay, let’s go to the doctor. So, I had to be on antibiotics for about three weeks.”
The Power of Love singer and her former manager – who had a 26-year age gap – tied the knot on 17 December 1994, three years after their secret engagement. Celine and René said ‘I do’ in the groom’s birthplace of Montreal, at the Notre-Dame Basilica.
It was just five years after their nuptials in 1999 when René was diagnosed with throat cancer. After he was given the all-clear in 2000, the couple renewed their wedding vows in an Orthodox ceremony at Ceasars Palace in Las Vegas.
Unlike her first wedding dress, Celine opted for a more glamorous outfit which included a sparkly gold off-the-shoulder dress with long sleeves and statement earrings to match.
By 2013, René’s cancer returned and one year later he was told that it was terminal. He passed away two years later on 14 January aged 73, leaving behind Celine and their three children René Charles, Nelson, and Eddy.
Addressing her husband during her Vogue interview, Celine said of their wedding: “This is a moment that will be with me for the rest of my life.
“The [wedding] dress couldn’t have been big enough. I could have had three times the size on my head. I could have had six different dresses that night because he was and he’s still such a wonderful human being.”
She added: “He brought the best [out] of me, he really did.”
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