I was editor of OK! Magazine for the first Beckham wedding, here are my tips for Brooklyn

It is 23 yrs since his mum and dad’s entwined initials fluttered on a silken flag in excess of the battlements of Luttrellstown Castle, just outside Dublin.

Tomorrow in Palm Beach front, Florida, as he applies a remaining flick to his coiffured quiff on the terrace of his bride-to-be’s £76million dollar “beach house”, the eldest son will convey again to lifestyle the most glittering brand name title in superstar fame-fests: The Beckham Wedding.

But in the new world of electronic decadence, the place Instagram, Twitter and uploaded selfies can present minute-by-moment shots and commentary, can Brooklyn Beckham and heiress Nicola Peltz choreograph and command the release of the most valuable and private particulars of their wedding ceremony in the exact same way that Victoria and David Beckham so famously did?

As editor of Okay! Journal, back in the late 90s, I oversaw the Beckham marriage ceremony from the moment we successfully bid £1m for it (mistakenly – as it turned out – imagining The Solar experienced presented a similar amount) by way of the ceremony alone to the collection of the photographs, together with the dressing-gowned newlyweds, crouched around photographer Brian Aris’s light-weight-box in a barn following to the castle in the tiny hrs of the next early morning.

Speed and secrecy have been our watchwords: if we did not get the transparencies again to London and the magazine printed and out on the information-stands speedily, the exhilaration of the celebration would start out to fade. If a person essential element of that wedding day leaked out, to the newspapers – or, worse, our rival Hello! Journal – the linked economic and shock value of the distinctive could be severely compromised.

The Beckhams understood and appreciated this, completely. It was not the wedding ceremony alone that would carry them into the posture of British movie star royalty – a position they would sign by sitting on thrones at the reception (a celebrity initial again then, feel it or not) – but the way in which it would be revealed to the planet.

On 3 July 1999, the night right before the ceremony, with press helicopters presently hammering overhead, Brian Aris and I carried umbrellas to shield the couple as they headed into the grounds for a pre-ceremony photograph-shoot in matching purple Vera Wang outfits. In the castle alone, a 4-month previous Brooklyn, accompanied by grandparents Jackie Adams and Sandra Beckham, romped fortunately on the large sofas in a comparable outfit and matching hat.

The pursuing day the castle was going through a very fashionable siege, as photographers massed at the gates. A stability crew, led by the ex-military services man Kevin O’Brien, combed the undergrowth in the castle grounds and ejected the handful of paps that had currently crawled in.

Visitors came in from Dublin airport: the Spice Girls minus Geri Halliwell (Victoria later on denied not inviting her), their raucous laughter echoing around the entrance corridor, various customers of the Manchester United team and other soccer stars. A emphasize of the night festivities would be viewing a incredibly merry and top rated-hatted Ryan Giggs attempting to perform a piano duet with former England goalkeeper, David Seaman.

With David Beckham resplendent in a white suit, and Victoria Adams encased in a product costume corset that cinched her waist to a tear-inducing 18inches, the few ended up married in a little stone cave in the castle grounds, festooned with flowers.

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When the marriage challenge of the magazine was printed, a few days later, scuffles broke out in WH Smith’s and other newsagents as clients clamoured for copies. An astonishing 1.7million copies have been marketed: arguably a single of the best solitary magazine exclusives in publishing record. The next two challenges, with much more photos, introduced total sales of all three Beckham specials to seven million.

But, in today’s on the internet globe, it isn’t usually achievable to generate such massive print exclusives. That getting stated, at The Sunday Convey, which I subsequently edited, we kept the 1st story about Meghan Markle’s romance with Prince Harry completely beneath wraps – and publications can even now burnish their qualifications, or notoriety, hand-in-hand with the electronic earth: believe of New York’s Paper Magazine and their Kim Kardashian Breaks The Web protect.

But the a person-on-one celeb magazine bidding wars amongst Okay! And Hi! and the flood of movie star weddings that adopted the Beckhams – everyone from Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas to, er, Phil Neville – set out the superior water mark for magazine profits. As other superstar titles entered the current market, immediately adopted by on-line movie star websites, gross sales began to slide.

Can Brooklyn and Nicola buck the trend and develop a feeling to match that of his mom and dad? Possibly, if they have banned telephones and cameras and can avoid a Twitter leak of Nicola’s bridal gown – constantly the Holy Grail photograph from any movie star marriage – then the launch or publication of a few “official” photographs will whip up some excitement.

But can scrolling by means of a couple pictures on our phones ever match the sheer exhilaration we felt turning people massive glossy pages in 1999 and exploring all the inside of strategies of Victoria and Beckham’s ground-breaking wedding ceremony?

The golden age of movie star has long gone, it’s the Google age now.

Martin Townsend is the former Editor of Okay! Journal and now a expert senior advisor at Pagefield PR