Brad and Angelina agree to wed

LOS ANGELES:

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, one of the world’s best known couples, are engaged to marry, ending a fevered, seven-year celebrity media dance over whether they will ever say “I do”.

“Yes, it’s confirmed,” Pitt’s manager Cynthia Pett-Dante told the People magazine on Friday. “It is a promise for the future and their kids are very happy.”

She said no date had been set at this time, and there was no word of the wedding’s location.

The news put an end to months of speculation about the couple and their plans to marry. Jeweller Robert Procop designed Jolie’s engagement ring in collaboration with Pitt, and confirmed the news.

The famous Beverly Hills jeweller, who has designed an entire collection inspired by Jolie, worked on the ring for a year.

Pitt “wanted every aspect of it to be perfect, so Robert was able to locate a diamond of the finest quality and cut it to an exact custom size and shape to suit Angelina’s hand,” the jeweller said in a statement.

“Brad was always heavily involved, overseeing every aspect of the evolution of the design. The side diamonds are specially cut to encircle her finger. Each diamond is of the highest gem quality.”

The ring made its official debut on Wednesday night, when Jolie wore it to a small, private viewing of Chinese art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art with Pitt and son Pax.

Pitt, 48, and Jolie, 36, became close on the set of 2005 film Mr and Mrs Smith. They have three biological children together and adopted three others, and Pitt apparently caved after pressure from the kids.

“We’d actually like to,” Pitt said of making Jolie his wife, “and it seems to mean more and more to our kids. We made this declaration some time ago that we weren’t going to do it till everyone can,” he added in a January interview with The Hollywood Reporter, in a reference to the legalisation of gay marriage. “But I don’t think we’ll be able to hold out. It means so much to my kids, and they ask a lot. And it means something to me, too, to make that kind of commitment.”

Jolie had also stoked the media firestorm when she told ABC News in December that “the kids asked me the other day, and I asked them if it was just because they wanted to have a big cake.”

“I explained to them that our commitment, when we decided to start a family, is the greatest commitment you can possible have. Once you have six children, you’re committed,” she added.

Last year was very busy for Jolie, with the release of In the Land of Blood and Honey, a Bosnian War film that marked her directorial debut. And Pitt has taken a pause from the frenetic pace of his film career to spend more time with Jolie and their children.

“It’s family first. This year, I needed to spend more time with my family so I spent more quiet time developing stuff,” he told AFP in February.

(WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM REUTERS)

Published in The Express Tribune, April 15^th, 2012.