Looking back, it's somewhat endearing that George Clooney didn't realize his wedding to international human rights attorney Amal Clooney (née Alamuddin) would make such a splash. Five months after he got down on one knee midway through a homemade pasta dinner—his Aunt Rosemary Clooney 's track "Why Shouldn't I?" the signal it was time to ask Amal to grab a lighter from the drawer where she'd discover the 7-carat diamond he'd commissioned—they rounded up 100 of their nearest and dearest for Venetian vows that would see them traversing the city's maze of canals for four days. "We didn't tell anybody else that we were going to do it," George later told The Hollywood Reporter , "but eventually somebody figured it out.
" And once people got wind of the plans, "it became an event," he continued. They bussed the four hours from his 18th century Lake Como villa to Venice "and once we got on the boat, there were so many paparazzi and so many people standing there waiting. We were sitting down in the boat, and I was like, 'You know what? Why are we hiding? Why are we ducking? We shouldn't be ashamed of this.
' And we got up and waved." Because their Sept. 27, 2014 traditional ceremony was every bit as spectacular as any red carpet event with everyone from Emily Blunt and John Krasinski to Matt Damon , Bono and Anna Wintour turning out to watch the long-professed bachelor, who'd insisted he'd sooner slip back into Batman's cowl than marry again, pledge forever to the woman he never .