Melania Trump wedding: Biggest, most surprising celebrities at Mar-a-Lago – Palm Beach Post
Happy (almost) anniversary to Donald and Melania Trump: In January 2025, the former first couple will celebrate a milestone − 20 years of marriage.
Twenty years ago, Donald Trump and then-fiancé Melania Knauss, her professional modeling name, were in the throes of planning their lavish nuptials in Palm Beach, Florida − the wedding at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-By-the-Sea, followed by a wedding reception in the new Donald J. Trump Ballroom at his private club. Melania Knauss began her modeling career at age 16 and moved to New York in 1996. The couple met in 1998 at a New York fashion party, became engaged in 2004 and married in 2005.
All of this was before Trump became the 45th president of the United States, before Melania became a mom to Barron Trump (Trump’s youngest child of five), and before Mar-a-Lago, site of the billionaire’s wedding reception, became known as the Southern White House when Trump was in office.
Twenty years ago, Melania Knauss was just a bride-to-be, squeezing in wedding dress fittings, finalizing celebrity invites, wedding favors and reception dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Melania Knauss became Mrs. Donald Trump on a Saturday evening in January 2005.
Here’s a look back at wedding preparations for Donald and Melania Trump and what we know about their Jan. 25, 2005, wedding, from archived photos and coverage of the event by The Palm Beach Post and the Palm Beach Daily News.
Trump makes ‘I do’ a doozy!Wedding to Melania Knauss was so full of lights & cameras, Shannon Donnelly reports
Then Melania Knauss (Melania Knauss was a name change and her original name is Melanija Knavs), the Slovenian “began modeling at age 16, and two years later she signed on with an agency in Milan. She enrolled at the University of Ljubljana but dropped out after one year to pursue her modeling career,” according to the Melania Trump bio on biography.com. In her early days of modeling, the site states, Melania Trump worked in Milan and Paris before moving to New York in 1996. She met future husband Donald Trump two years later at a New York fashion party.
Melania often appeared on “The Apprentice” with Donald Trump when he was host of the reality TV show on NBC. She also accompanied Trump to lavish parties at his private club, Mar-a-Lago.
Melania Knauss appeared on the covers of Harper’s Bazaar (Bulgaria edition), Vanity Fair (Italy edition), GQ (for which she posed nude in January 2000), and she appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
The Trumps became engaged in 2004 and married Jan. 25, 2005.
Melania Trump was the first lady of the U.S. from 2016 to 2020.
Billionaire Donald Trump, then host of “The Apprentice” reality TV show on NBC, married Slovenian model Melania Knauss on Saturday, Jan. 22, 2005, at Bethesda-By-the-Sea Church, 141 S. County Road, Palm Beach, Florida.
Bethesda-by-the-Sea church originated in 1889 with its current structure dating back to 1925. In 2005, the Palm Beach Post reported the church could hold 700-plus souls, or twice the number of invited guests.
Fun fact: NBA legend Michael Jordan, seven-time champion of the Chicago Bulls and GOAT of pro basketball, married his wife, Cuban model Yvette Prito, at Bethesda-By-the-Sea in 2013.
In 2005, the Trump-Knauss wedding reception was held at the “new” Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, which is less than 3 miles from Bethesda-By-the-Sea. The ballroom cost $35 million and was built in a Versailles-inspired Louis XIV style, including several Czechoslovakian crystal chandeliers.
Floral designers had filled the Mar-A-Lago ballroom with 10,000 flowers, and chefs served caviar, Grand Marnier cake and Cristal champagne. Dinner included “beggar’s purses filled with caviar, tenderloin done to a turn, miniature wedding cakes and the finest Cristal poured into one of those magical glasses that is never, ever empty,” the Palm Beach Daily News said in a Jan. 21, 2005, society column.
According to the Palm Beach Daily News, “long tables for 20 filled the ballroom, with its gleaming chandeliers and extensive gold leaf. Designer Preston Bailey set the tables in cream and gold, from linens and china to flatware. Enormous candelabrae were wrapped top to bottom in white orchids and roses. A stage at the east end of the room held the Michael Rose Orchestra. This was not your typical wedding reception.”
They do!Memories of Donald & Melania Trump’s wedding in Palm Beach, reception at Mar-a-Lago
Melania Knauss wore a $100,000 Christian Dior wedding gown. The dress — escorted by four people from the House of Dior to protect its 13-foot train, 16-foot veil and 550 hours worth of hand-sewn crystal beading — arrived separately at Bethesda-By-the-Sea Episcopal Church (the site of the Trump-Knauss wedding) hours before the 7 p.m. ceremony, the Palm Beach Daily News reported in January 2005.
According to archive news reports from the Palm Beach Post and Palm Beach Daily News, here’s a small list of the 350 people who were invited to Donald and Melania Trump’s wedding in Palm Beach, Florida, in January 2005:
According to a Jan. 21, 2005, story from Palm Beach Daily News, “regrets came from Bruce Willis (shooting in Montreal), Elton John (charity commitment in Europe on Sunday), Oprah Winfrey (the ever-vague “previous engagement”), Joe Torre (in Hawaii), George Steinbrenner (tied up with spring training stuff), Catherine Zeta-Jones and hubby Michael Douglas (he’s on a United Nations peace mission − really!), Eliot Spitzer (previous commitments) and Phil Mickelson, who’s playing in the Buick Invitational.”
What it’s like to cover Trump’s wedding:It was a doozy, one for the record books
The following comes from archive coverage from the Palm Beach Post, the Palm Beach Daily News and USA TODAY Network-Florida.
Contributing: Bill Ingram, Damon Higgins, Bruce R. Bennett and Staci Sturrock, Palm Beach Post, and Jeffrey Langlois, Palm Beach Daily News
Palm Beach Daily News Society Editor Shannon Donnelly has been covering the Palm Beach social scene for 38 years.
Sangalang is a lead digital producer for USA TODAY Network-Florida. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram at @byjensangalang. Support local journalism. Consider subscribing to a Florida newspaper.