Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady

Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady: a celebrity couple for hard times In hard times, who needs a celebrity wedding? We all do. Ken the wedding Toastmaster agreses.

Of all the recent signs that perhaps — just perhaps — the Dow Jones won’t fall to zero, unemployment won’t reach 100 per cent and the US Treasury won’t be forced to scrap the dollar and reintroduce a livestock-based barter system, the mega-marriage last weekend of the American sports star Tom Brady to the Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen has been the most reassuring.

Seriously.

Outlandish celebrity marriages, like overblown corporate mergers, are one of the most reliable indicators of economic optimism. During the Bush/Greenspan bubble years, it seemed as though a new one came along every other week. We were transfixed by the spectacle of Brangelina (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie). We marvelled at the synergy of Bennifer (Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez). And we feasted on the horror of TomKat (Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes).

Celebrity marriages both validated and fed our increasingly unhinged consumerism: every new union required a shuffle of multimillion-dollar clifftop homes, along with a GDP-sized outlay on Michelin-grade banquets, couture outfits, private islands, Gulfstream jets and $100,000-a-night honeymoon suites, all of which was itemised in almost comic detail by the likes of People magazine.