At the end of the day, everyone agreed the best thing was the pie. Bill was a close second, for sure. Bill — no last name, thanks — who gave us an impromptu tour of the historic district of Greensboro. And who was anxiously awaiting an old friend who grew up on the neighbouring farm in Indiana. John Mellencamp. The singer likes to stay with Bill whenever he’s passing through. And what was bringing Mr. Mellencamp to town? Bill preferred not to say. Which must have been hard for him because Bill is a pretty friendly guy. He did allow that his poor housekeeper was “at home killing herself cleaning.” But even Bill had to admit that the buttermilk pie was something. Even Southern Living magazine thought so, which is why the publication named it one of the best pies in the entire southern United States.

Everyone loves this pie including, it turns out, Carrie Underwood.

At the very least, it’s a pie she thinks her guests would like because she ordered hundreds of them for her wedding to Ottawa Senator Mike Fisher, which took place Saturday night at the posh Ritz-Carlton Lodge — Reynolds Plantation. Not that Chris Bragg, the co-owner of The Yesterday Café in downtown Greensboro, Georgia, which is responsible for the delicious concoction, would either confirm or deny.

Big order going out today? “Could be, could be.”

Bragg, like many others in this town that seems almost preserved in time, is sticking to his confidentiality-agreement guns. Seems like everyone has signed one: the pie shop, the limousine company, staff at the five-star resort where it’s all happening, even the sheriff’s office that was hired to provide extra security on the road — and waterways — to keep media away from the biggest celebrity wedding of the year. The couple of the hour wanted to have a private wedding, and that’s exactly what they got. Whether or not you’re famous, no one wants a dozen helicopters buzzing overhead and a mob of pushy strangers snapping photos on that most important day. But when you’re celebrities, you have a further reason to up the security: exclusive photo deal.

And the prize of Underwood-Fisher wedding photos went to People magazine. Signing an exclusive arrangement works well for power couples of star magnitude: they (or their people) can negotiate the dos and don’ts ahead of time, such as whether a reporter can speak to any guests, and which ones. The bride and groom also get a whack of money. In exchange, the couple can’t be photographed by any other media, which is great because they don’t want to be anyhow.

On Saturday evening, People posted its first webhit about the wedding — unlike every other entertainment media that’s been speculating wildly about it for almost a week — confirming that Underwood and Fisher were married under a tent (so there was a tent, after all!) before 250 guests. The bride wore a Chantilly lace dress. The magazine’s quote from “Mike and Carrie Fisher” was provided in a statement. Full-colour glossy spreads of the bride, the bridesmaids and the dinner menu will be coming to a newsstand near you. Apparently, People paid big for those pictures. We heard it was a whopping $2 million — but that was from our waitress at a local steakhouse, who heard it from another group of diners earlier in the evening. Turns out, a seven-figure price tag might not be so off the mark.

“This wedding is a very big deal in the entertainment world,” Lora McLaughlin told us. She would not be surprised to hear People paid over $1 million for the photos — after all, the magazine paid five times that for snaps of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s baby Shiloh. That covers the wedding costs nicely, although the half-million-dollar estimate for the celebration is starting to seem modest. And the couple is likely to donate at least some of it to charity.

McLaughlin is a broadcaster and occasional actor who sometimes freelances for Entertainment Tonight. Although she lives with her husband in California, they have a vacation home here where, in a bizarre co-incidence, the couple was holidaying last week.When McLaughlin quickly figured out that something was afoot in Greensboro, ET sent a crew out to work with her. In the end, though, they didn’t get anything too spectacular. McLaughlin said she hasn’t seen security like this since Jennifer Aniston married Brad Pitt. In fact, no one seemed to know anything about it until Thursday. That’s the day that local probate judge LaVerne Ogletree issued the marriage licence. And the day that local postman Zack Jarrard delivered a federal express letter addressed to Underwood at the Reynolds Plantation.

Because it needed a signature, the resort staff didn’t know what to do when the mailman showed up. A few people blurted out that Underwood wasn’t there yet, but eventually a security type told Jarrard that “she’s not coming.” Zack wasn’t fooled, but sent the letter back anyway. By Saturday, most of the townspeople were certainly aware of the wedding.

There was a rumour Garth Brooks was in the Publix near the resort (no one can come up with a good explanation as to why). Danielle Gower, the grocery store’s customer service manager, said she’d heard that too. The only problem was she couldn’t find an employee who’d actually seen him. And a couple customers accosted a man in the parking lot, accusing him of being Tim McGraw. Alas, he was not. Doesn’t mean that neither of them are not at the wedding, just that no one can confirm they were grocery shopping. Others were whispering that they’d heard from people who worked at the Ritz-Carlton resort that all employees were being frisked upon entering, that cellphones were being confiscated and that women were asked to lock their purses in the trunks of their cars.


View Photos Here!

Source: OttawaCitizen.com

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