Blink and You Missed Spears’ First Marriage

LAS VEGAS —  Pop star Britney Spears’ first marriage will be remarkably brief -- even by celebrity standards.

The 22-year-old married Jason Allen Alexander, a childhood friend from Louisiana, about 5:30 a.m. Saturday at a wedding chapel here. By that afternoon, the couple had arranged an annulment in the presence of several people, including a lawyer, said a source close to Spears, who asked not to be identified.

Spears and Alexander, of Kentwood, La., “took a joke too far by getting married,” her record label, Jive Records, said in a statement.

“Ms. Spears and Mr. Alexander have filed for an annulment, which will become official on Monday,” said the statement, read by Sonia Muckle, Jive’s vice president of publicity.

Spears and Alexander traveled by limousine to the Little White Wedding Chapel on the Strip after a stop at the Ghost Bar, a club in the Palms Casino Hotel, the source said. The chapel staff told the couple they couldn’t get married without a license, so they were taken to get one and driven back to the chapel, where they were married.

The bride, wearing a baseball cap and torn jeans, was escorted down the aisle by a limousine driver.

George Maloof Jr., a friend of Spears and the owner and operator of the Palms Casino Hotel, denied reports that Spears was drunk and had to be carried out of the Rain dance club at the Palms on New Year’s Eve.

“I was with her the whole night,” he said. “None of those reports were accurate. She was just having a good time.”

Spears was staying at the Palms but was expected to leave Sunday. Employees at the chapel declined comment.

Alexander was back in his hometown Sunday, according to his grandfather, Robert Alexander. “He’d been through a lot. We picked him up in New Orleans coming back and he didn’t have much to say,” the elder Alexander told “Entertainment Tonight.”

“I wish them well. Whatever happens, happens.”

He said Spears and his grandson had also spent Christmas Eve together.

Calls to Alexander’s family home in Kentwood were answered by a machine. His grandmother said any details about the wedding would have to come from Jason or his father.

“We know about the wedding and stuff. It’s all over the news,” Betty Alexander said.