The Most Watched Wedding...Ever!!!

For over 20 years, Princess Diana and Prince Charles had the most watched wedding, as 17 million viewers watched on the 3 main networks. But in 2003, with reality shows at their hottest, the first "Bachelorette," Trista Rehn, and her fiance, Ryan Sutter, managed to trump the royal couple with 17.1 million viewers for their wedding, which was on just one network, ABC.

Wedding Gown #1: Trista wore a Badgley Mischka white satin dress, with a shirred bodice and a heavily beaded torso and border on an a-line skirt for the ceremony. She wore $50,000 diamond and platinum Stuart Weitzman shoes for her big day.

Wedding Gown #2: Trista then changed into another Badgley Mischka lacy, form-fitted spaghetti strapped dress.

The bridesmaids wore Pink Amsale gowns with black ruffles at the hem. All of the bridesmaids' dresses were strapless except the matron-of-honor. They carried bouquets of varying shades of light pink roses.

Ryan and his groomsmen wore Kenneth Cole tuxedos. In preparation for the wedding, Trista and Ryan spent the week in the caviar- and Dom-stocked presidential suite. The Lodge at Rancho Mirage was closed for 4 days prior to the wedding to prepare for the 300-guest event.

Location: The wedding took place at the Lodge Rancho Mirage, the Palm Springs area of Southern California. The ceremony was held outdoors and reportedly 30,000 pink and ivory roses were used for the wedding. The guests sat on chairs draped with varying shades of pink and rose-covered garlands were hung behind the altar and through the center aisle.

For their wedding ceremony, Trista and Ryan read the Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem, “How do I love thee.” They then had a sand ceremony lead by the officiant. Three colors of sand were used to represent their neutral foundation and their individual strengths, and were then poured into a vase. All of the sand was blended together showing that they were choosing to blend their lives together. To keep their ceremony personal, Trista and Ryan read letters that they had written to each other. Ryan movingly said “I’ve woken to a sunrise more surprising and beautiful than any dream.”
The couple also wrote out personalized vows for eachother. At the conclusion of the ceremony, Trista jumped into Ryan's arms for their first kiss as husband and wife.

According to Reuters, the wedding was catered by Lodge Rancho Mirage, and “featured food flown in from 14 different countries, 180 bottles of champagne, 600 bottles of wine, 1,500 pounds of chocolate and 200 pounds of shrimp, lobster and crab.” Their wedding cake was a chocolate cake with cascading pink sugar roses down one side.

For their first dance, Ryan surprised his bride with a song composed of words he wrote shortly after they met, and got his friend, country music superstar Brad Paisley, to serenade them with it. The opening verse was:

Here I am

Wondering where I stand

Looking for a place to land

My heart in the palm of her hand

Just a boy dying to be her man

The happy couple relaxed at the ultra-private Turtle Island resort in Fiji for their honeymoon. The couple was in Fiji when ABC aired their wedding.

Price tag for this wedding: Reports have varied on the cost of the wedding, but $3.77 million is a consistent number in most reports. Trista and Ryan received $1 million from ABC to have their wedding televised.

Most importantly, Trista and Ryan are still married!

All photos courtesy of ABC.com