Important celebrity weddings, babies and splits in 2011

Every year there are big celebrity bashes, cute new Hollywood offspring and ugly public splits, 2011 was no exception. It was a year that saw historic matches that will change the face of European royalty and a year that also shows that not all matches in Hollywood were built to last. Here is a look at some of the highlights from 2011.Britains Prince William and Kate Middleton married at Westminster Abbey on April 29 in a sumptuous show of British pageantry that attracted a huge world audience and injected new life into the monarchy.Prince Albert of Monaco married a South African Olympic swimmer, Charlene Wittstock, in a modest civil ceremony on July 1, followed by a lavish church wedding in the small Mediterranean state a day later. The wedding is the first of a ruling prince in Monaco since Alberts father, Prince Rainier III, married Hollywood star Grace Kelly in 1956. Rainier transformed Monaco from a faded gambling center into a billionaires haven, using his marriage to Kelly to infuse the tiny principality with film-star glamour.Paul McCartney married for the third time on October 9, exchanging vows with American heiress Nancy Shevell at the same London register office where the former Beatle wed his first wife Linda in 1969.Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, who star as a married couple in the 2011 film, Dream House, tied the knot in a secret wedding ceremony in New York. The low-key ceremony on June 22 reportedly had just four people present.British supermodel Kate Moss married her rocker boyfriend Jamie Hince on July 1 in a small English country church, accompanied by 15 bridesmaids. Moss, 37, and Hince, 42, is a guitar player.Reese Witherspoon married talent agent Jim Toth in Ojai, California on March 26. The 35 year old bride wore a pink Monique Lhuillier gown and her 11 year old daughter Ava was the maid of honor. Her seven year old son Deacon was the ring bearer.Robin Williams married his girlfriend Susan Schneider in Napa Valley, the section of northern California known for wine and romance, on October 22. The 60-year-old Oscar-winning comedian met Schneider in 2009, after she helped nurse him back to health following surgery to a faulty heart valve. It is his third marriage.Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sofia Coppola and her longtime musician boyfriend, Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars, were married on August 27.KISS frontman Gene Simmons and his girlfriend of 28 years, the actress and former Playmate Shannon Tweed, married on October 1. The Israeli-born Simmons, 62, and the Canadian-born Tweed exchanged vows they wrote themselves. Simmons, whod vowed he would never marry, shocked fans in July when he proposed to Tweed on A&Es Gene Simmons Family Jewels.British singer Lily Allen tied the knot with decorator and business owner Sam Cooper on June 11. The pair were married at St. James the Great Church in Gloucestershire, England.Superstar Beyonce let pictures tell the story of a baby on the way for her and rapper husband Jay-Z at the MTV Video Music Awards on August 28. The singer, whose hits include Beautiful Liar and Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it), appeared onstage to perform her song Love On Top, telling the audience to stand up. At the end of her song, she took off her jacket, smiled broadly and rubbed her tummy. In the audience, her husband and rapper Jay-Z was congratulated by his friend and collaborator Kanye West and he gave Beyonce a big wave. She and Jay-Z began dating in 2002 and were married in April 2008.David and Victoria Beckham welcomed a new baby girl into the world, adding a daughter to the three sons they already have in their growing family.Actress Natalie Portman gave birth to a baby boy fathered by a choreographer she met while film her Oscar-winning role in Black Swan. The baby was born in mid-July. Portman announced in December 2010 that she was pregnant and planned to marry her boyfriend, French ballet dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied.Singer Mariah Carey and husband Nick Cannon named their new twin babies Moroccan and Monroe. The pair -- a boy and a girl -- were born in a Los Angeles hospital on April 30, on the couples third wedding anniversary.French first lady Carla Bruni gave birth to a baby girl on October 19, her first child with husband French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the first baby born to a French presidential couple in office. His daughters birth coincided with one of the most crucial weeks of Sarkozys four-year presidency as he battled to hammer out a plan with Germany to stem the euro zones debt crisis.Spanish film star Penelope Cruz gave birth to a baby boy with Oscar-winning actor husband Javier Bardem in mid January.Elton John and his partner became the proud parents of a son born to a surrogate in California on Christmas Day, 2010.Actress Jessica Alba and her husband Cash Warren welcomed a baby girl on August 13. Haven Garner Warren is the second daughter for the couple.Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan gave birth to a baby girl on November 16. Rai, 38, a former Miss World, has been married to actor Abhishek Bachchan for more than four years and the star couple had been fending off baby rumors for months before the pregnancy was confirmed in June.Actor Hugh Grant welcomed a baby girl into his life following a brief affair with an unidentified woman, his spokeswoman said on November 1. The identity of the mother was not disclosed, nor were the details of the couples relationship. This is the first child for the 51-year-old Bridget Jones actor.Kate Hudson and her rocker boyfriend Matt Bellamy welcomed a baby boy on July 9. The couples first child together was born in Los Angeles.Robert Downey, Jr., star of the Iron Man movies, and his wife Susan are expecting their first child together. The 46 year-old actor and his second wife met on the set of Gothika in 2003, and married in New York in 2005.Hollywood star Bruce Willis and his wife, designer and model Emma Heming, are expecting their first child together. The baby, the couples first child together, is due early in 2012.Rod Stewart and his wife Penny Lancaster welcomed a new baby boy into the world on February 16. The son, named Aiden, is the couples second boy. Aiden is Stewarts eighth child.Singer and actress Jennifer Lopez and Latin pop singer Marc Anthony decided to end their marriage after seven years, the couple said on July 15. Lopez and Anthony, who have 3 year-old twins, said they had come to amicable conclusions on all matters. Lopez and Anthony have a pair of fraternal twins.Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher said on November 17 they were ending their marriage after six years, breaking up one of the most widely followed May-December romances Hollywood has seen. The marriage between Moore, 49, and Kutcher 33, had been in trouble since late September.Reality TV star Kim Kardashian filed for divorce on October 31, just 72 days after marrying basketball player Kris Humphries in a lavish wedding that was billed as a fairytale. Kardashian, 31, star of the TV show Keeping Up With the Kardashians, cited irreconcilable differences. Humphries later filed for an annulment.Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds called it quits in December 2010 after two years of marriage, and finalized their divorce in July. Johansson, the 26-year-old star of movies such as Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Hes Just Not That Into You, married Reynolds in September 2008.Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner, 85, was dumped by 25-year-old fiancee Crystal Harris in June, just five days before the wedding, after she got jitters about living a tightly regimented life among dozens of attractive young women at the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles. Hefner, 85, and Crystal Harris were due to tie the knot in front of more than 300 guests at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles on June 12.Former California first lady Maria Shriver filed for divorce on July 1 from her estranged husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the ex-governor and film star who has admitted fathering a child out of wedlock more than a decade ago. Shriver, 55, a former television journalist and a daughter of the Kennedy political dynasty, filed papers seeking to dissolve her 25-year marriage to Schwarzenegger, 63, in Los Angeles County Superior Court.