Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's surprise wedding may have shocked everyone who woke up to the news on the morning of Aug. 28, let alone those who thought those two might just stay engaged forever.
But obviously the globally anticipated nuptials didn't actually occur on a whim—although, really, more preparation has gone into some children's birthday parties than went into Brangelina's comparatively low-key, family-oriented affair.
"We were all going to have a wedding," Jolie recalls the two weeks leading up to the big day in Vanity Fair's December 2014 issue, on sale Nov. 6 and featuring the Oscar winner on the cover. "There was no cake, so Pax made a cake. The kids made little pillows for the rings and Knox practiced [being a ring bearer] with an acorn that kept falling off the pillow. Brad's mom [Jane Pitt] went and picked some flowers and tied them up."
Well, if this whole super-star, A-list actor-filmmaker stuff doesn't work out, the whole family can go into the wedding-planning business.
The kids also helped write mom and dad's vows, Jolie, radiating both power and sex appeal on the cover in a silky Max Mara blouse, told the magazine. "They did not expect us never to fight, but they always made us promise to say 'sorry' if we do," she recalled. "So they said, 'Do you?,' and we said, 'We do!'"
Asked if she felt any different now that she was officially married to Pitt, her partner of nearly nine years beforehand, Jolie admitted that "it does feel different."
"It feels nice to be husband and wife," she said.
Jolie and Pitt tied the knot on Aug. 23 in a non-denominational civil ceremony held inside the chapel on their estate in the South of France, Château Miraval. Fewer than two dozen people—including the bride and groom—were in attendance.
The I-dos were followed by a bountiful luncheon in the main house's "Great Hall," complete with bottles of signature rosé from the newlyweds' own vineyard.
"Brad and Angie said handwritten vows telling each other how much they love each other and their beautiful family and they both had tears in their eyes as did everyone else," a source told E! News days after the wedding. "It was short but loaded with meaning, and it was a lovely way to start life in their new family home now that the building work is finally finished."
It's her devotion to her family and her main role—mom—that helps drive both her humanitarian work and her ventures as a director, her most recent effort being the drama Unbroken, based on the book of the same name about Olympian turned troubled war hero and all-around indominitable spirit Louis Zamperini, who died this year at the age of 97 while the movie was still being finished.
"I want young kids to see this film," Jolie said in VF about the movie, which apparently pulls no punches in the gritty realism department. "I want something to take to my children—a life message." Unbroken is in theaters Christmas Day.