Britney's Tangled Wedding: A Primer

Family law attorney Ed Sherman has a solution to the Britney Spears-Kevin Federline imbroglio: "I think they should both be sent to their rooms."

Legal experts were scratching their heads Thursday as new details in the Spears-Federline nuptials didn't resolve the key question: Are the pop star and backup dancer lawfully wed?

Should anyone legally challenge the union, says Sherman, a California-based lawyer for more than 30 years, "you've got a mucky-muck mess that you've got to go to court to clean up."

For now, the challenges are being leveled at the newsstand.

Us Weekly insists the couple faked it. Federline tells People that suggestions that they're not "legally wed are [BS]." Spears tells People they're "not completely legal." And a Spears publicist, talking to the New York Post, says the singer and Federline consider themselves married, except they're "not technically."

On Thursday, People, which touts "Britney's Wedding Album" on its Oct. 4 cover, released Spears and Federline's California marriage license.

The document appears to have been issued on Sept. 9 and notarized on Sept. 16, two days before Spears, 22, and Federline, 26 (and, per the license, possessed of the middle name Earl), made like a bride and groom--at least in apparel--at the Studio City, California, home of their wedding planner.

The certificate features signatures from both Spears and Federline. The section in which the wedding officiant is to attest to the time, date and place of the ceremony is blank.

Calls to Spears' publicist were not returned Thursday.

In the Post, Spears flack Leslie Sloane Zelnick says the "marriage is not technically legal" yet.

"The papers were filed, but because the wedding date was switched so quickly, they didn't come through, and the marriage hasn't become legal," Zelnick says in the paper.

The publicist's line essentially echoes those used by Spears and the "BS"-dropping Federline in People. Spears says she and Federline are married "in a real sense, in a spiritual sense," even though "we're not completely legal until we file the license." Federline explains they delayed the filing because of a "grace period" involving the prenuptial agreement.

Los Angeles County marriage-license officials and lawyers, however, say that a valid marriage license does not a valid marriage make. If Spears and Federline got married last Saturday, their lack of a license on file with the registrar's office wouldn't make them any less married.

It's not known what "papers" Zelnick believes are preventing the marriage from being declared official.

Us, on the other hand, believes it has the papers that show why the fun couple "aren't legally hitched."

As reported Wednesday, the magazine says Spears and Federline agreed to "participate in a 'faux' wedding, with one another on Sept. 18, 2004."

The couple signed the agreement on Sept. 14, with their lawyers following suit on Sept. 17, the magazine says.

Why would Spears and Federline say, "I don't," only to stand before a minister and two dozen guests just three days later?

"It's all about money," says Ken Baker, West Coast executive editor for Us Weekly. "It's ugly. That's why she won't admit it."

Us asserts Spears agreed to sell photos from the Sept. 18 wedding to People and that she was intent on delivering a ceremony for the magazine.

E! Online columnist Ted Casablanca reported Thursday that the media definitely seemed more clued in to the event than family and friends.

"The press was there when we arrived," a guest told Casablanca. "It was clear some kind of deal had been made; they knew before we did."

But the Sept. 18 wedding couldn't be anything but a "faux" wedding for Spears and Federline, Us Weekly's Baker says, because their pre-nup wasn't finalized until Sept. 17.

"The pre-nup was not signed in time for them to get married, and Britney will never get married without a pre-nup again," Baker says, referring to the entertainer's 55-hour union to childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander last January.

A pre-nup is not valid in California until seven days after it's finalized--possibly the "grace period" referred to by Federline.

"You have to go through hoops [to] have a valid pre-nup," says Sherman, author of How to Do Your Own Divorce in California.

Per Us' timeline, the couple would have had to wait until at least Sept. 24, this coming Friday, to wed in order to protect Spears', um, their respective assets.

The magazine, citing its "faux"-wedding document, says the couple is waiting even longer--agreeing to wed on Oct. 16.

For its part, People has defended the ceremony heavily documented in its pages as the "real deal."

"That is the next bump in the story that you're going to see: The wedding is fake. It's really not," Jess Cagle, People senior editor, said Wednesday on CBS' Early Show.

Bitter rival Us begs to differ.

"Dan Rather was defending his George Bush story a week ago. Where is Dan Rather today?" Baker asks. "Granted, this is Britney Spears and not the President."

Calls seeking comment from a People spokesman were not returned Thursday.

Spears and Federline's purported let's-have-a-fake-wedding agreement, meanwhile, is a puzzlement to family-law experts contacted by E! Online.

"I've never heard of that," says Anthony J. Hill, a family law attorney based in Pasadena, California.

Sherman hasn't either--for good reason, he thinks. "This doesn't come up in ordinary people's lives," he says. "This is like the legal version of Jackass. What stupid things can we do to muck things up?"

According to the lawyers, such a document likely would be a puzzlement to the courts, too.

"You've got a terrible contradiction with what they do and what they sign--[they] are two different things," Sherman says of the reported Spears-Federline deal.

Hill says he's not sure a fake-wedding contract would prevent either the supposedly fake bride or the supposedly fake groom from later saying the ceremony, intended to be for pretend purposes or no, validated the union.

"It's like saying we kept our fingers crossed behind our back," Hill says, noting, that in the end, "You're on the hook."

In general, if two people go before a member of the clergy or a justice of the peace and exchange vows, a court can find them married, regardless of the paperwork.

But "if the minister was in on it," Hill says, "you could say something to invalidate [the service]."

Owing to the blank space on Spears and Federline's marriage certificate, it's not known who oversaw their ring exchange. Magazine reports say a minister--unnamed--did the honors.

Both Hill and Sherman say the state of the Spears-Federline union likely only will become an issue if either one of them, or a third party, perhaps seeking to settle a debt or a property matter, makes it an issue.

"You can make all the agreements you want," says Sherman. "That doesn't shed any light on whether or not they're really married."

Well, that helps...