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riley keough ben wedding© Photo: Getty Images

Riley Keough looks so different in red bridal gown for 'very intimate' first wedding

Lisa Marie Presley's daughter had two weddings in 2015

Nichola Murphy
Deputy Lifestyle Editor
January 31, 2023
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If you remember Lisa Marie Presley's daughter Riley Keough's wedding in 2015, your thoughts will turn to boho lace dresses and romantic outdoor photos – but that was far removed from her secret first wedding.

New mum Riley admitted that her big day in front of her friends and family, including her late mother Lisa and brother Benjamin, took place weeks after her unplanned destination wedding. At the time, Riley and her fiancé Ben Smith-Petersen were building schools in Nepal when the locals threw them a "very intimate" wedding without any of their family and friends in attendance.

WATCH: 10 more HELLO! exclusive weddings that were just as spectacular as Riley Keough's...

"We moved in together after two months and six months in he asked me to marry him and then we were married a year later," Elvis Presley's granddaughter told Vogue.

"Technically, our first wedding was in Nepal, because we were there building a school a couple of weeks before we got married. The families knew we were getting married and they said, 'Let us throw you a Hindu wedding.'

LOOK NOW: Lisa Marie Presley's unconventional mother-of-the-bride dress at Riley Keough's wedding revealed

"It was so beautiful and, in some ways, that wedding was a little more intimate and really special. That wedding, I cried. At my bigger wedding I was a little nervous, I wasn’t as present. But it was still equally as amazing."

Riley dressed in red at her Nepal wedding with Ben© Photo: Instagram

Riley joked they hadn't showered in a week at their Nepal wedding

One photo of the couple at their Nepal ceremony reveals their laid-back outfits, which were very different from the ones they wore for their American wedding. Ben looked relaxed in an open-neck white shirt with a yellow garland around his neck as he laid a hand affectionately on his new bride's head. 

She was grinning at him in a deep red dress with a matching jacket over the top covered with blue embroidered flowers. Riley wore her dark hair up and added a matching orange and yellow floral necklace as the locals watched on.

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The couple got married in front of family and friends at 157-acre Calistoga Ranch

It's likely that they enjoyed many of the rituals and traditions of a Hindu wedding, but since it was unplanned, we doubt it was legal. That means their ceremony at the 157-acre Calistoga Ranch in California's Napa Valley remained their official celebration.

Riley and Ben met on the set of Mad Max: Fury Road and enjoyed a whirlwind romance. "I was just out of a relationship that I needed to recover from, so definitely wasn’t looking for anything. Ben was on set and I saw him. It had been a year, and he just felt more grown up and there was something about him," she said, adding they joked about marriage on their first date.

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