Head Scratchers

Kim Kardashian, Brilliant Mogul? How She Made $18M On Her Wedding.

There’s no doubt about it – Kim Kardashian has pioneered some excellent ways of making money. Whether it’s reality TV antics (she didn’t pioneer those per se, but she did embrace them) to opening a wildly and inexplicably popular clothing store. But her latest exploit is by the far most impressive: she made $17.9 million on her wedding, which was apparently held, strangely enough, at Google exec Eric Schmidt’s house. That’s what she made, not what she spent.

How’d she do it? Here’s the breakdown, as compiled by The New York Post:

-A two-part TV special: $15 million.
-Sale of wedding photos to People: $2.5 million.
-Sale of rights to engagement announcement to People: $300,000.
-Sale of rights of bridal shower photos to OK!: $100,000.
-Having the bachelorette party at Tao Las Vegas (yes, she was paid to have it there): $50,000.

On top of that, Kardashian got all the expensive wedding fixins for free. A free Vera Wang dress, nearly a half a million dollars of Perrier-Jouet champagne for free, fancy free invitations, and so on.

A commenter on Styleite‘s take on the story relented, “I will NEVER understand why rich people get everything for free and the regular citizens pay up for everything.” The problem here is a tricky one, and one which we’re a bit ambivalent about. Of course the rich and famous don’t need to get stuff for free, but paying them to essentially endorse products is often what drives trends – that goes for both luxury and mainstream markets. Trends translate into the purchasing of things, which in turn is what drives the economy. In other words, if Kim Kardashian doesn’t get a free Vera Wang dress, no one will buy a free Vera Wang dress. If Kim Kardashian doesn’t eat at Tao, no one will go there.

Of course, we kid – to a certain degree. Tao Las Vegas was for a long time the highest grossing restaurant in the entire country! So take it at that – the business of high-paying celebrity endorsements and free giveaways to the rich and famous is certainly an exaggerated, and overblown one, but if you think about it, it is something that you can understand. At least economically.

TAGS: kim kardashian 18 million wedding | kim kardashian wedding | kim kardashian wedding location

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