It is footage that will be both difficult and inspiring for daughter Bobbi Kristina to watch as she admits she is still struggling to recover from her mother's death in a revealing interview with feted documentary maker Daphne Barak, who unearthed the video.
As Whitney the bride regally embraces a line of children at the ceremony, all dressed in white and playing classical music with small violins, Bobbi, now 20 and married only weeks ago, tells Daphne: ‘She WAS royal. People don’t know that about her…I called her My Royal Woman’.
Hand in hand: Whitney Houston and new husband Bobby brown show off their wedding rings after tying the knot on July 18, 1992
First dance: Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston
cling on to each other on the dance floor at their wedding at Whitney's
New Jersey estate
Regal: Whitney Houston bends down to kiss all the children who played at her wedding
Newlyweds: Whitney Houston and Bobbi Brown beam
after tying to knot on July 18, 1992. The marriage was to end in 2006
and Whitney was to die after years of drug abuse on February 11, 2012
Indeed, as they croon to each other at the lavish wedding on July 18, 1992, Whitney and Bobby - who were very much considered music's odd couple at the time - look every inch royalty, with Bobby even teasingly wearing one Whitney’s earrings.
The wedding, held at Whitney’s $10million home in Mendham, New Jersey, was an excessive affair, attended by a guest list of 800 – a figure Brown was later to sigh was ‘too much'.
Both the bride and groom wore white, with Whitney’s dress created out of French lace by Mark Bouwer and costing $40,000, and the wedding party dressed in shades of purple, the star’s favourite colour.
It is all a far cry from the circumstances of how Whitney’s life would end on February 11, 2012, after she was found dead in a bathtub at The Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles, aged just 48.
The couple had divorced in 2006 following a fiery and very public marriage.
Since the death of Whitney, one of the world’s biggest singing stars in her heyday before she spiralled into a desperate addiction to crack cocaine, Bobbi now has only her memories of her beloved mother to cling on to.
Now living in Atlanta with her husband and De facto step-brother Nick Gordon, Bobbi makes it clear that both she and Nick considered Whitney their mom, insisting: ‘Our mom was royal.'
While Nick, 24, whom Whitney moved into her home about 10 years before her death after learning his mother could no longer care for him, tells Daphne: ‘She was my mom too!’
Confirming their marriage earlier this month, Bobbi - who has said Whitney would have wanted their union - adds: ‘Our mom taught us to be royal. We are different.
‘There is royalty in our veins. She taught us how to move, how to talk. We want you to know, that where we come front, WE are royals, because SHE was royal.’
Lavish: Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown invited 800 guests to their wedding at Whitney's New Jersey estate
Tragic: Whitney Houston and daughter Bobbi
Kristina Brown attend Clive Davis' pre-Grammy Awards party at the
Beverly Hilton hotel on February 12, 2011. Almost exactly a year to the
day later, Whitney would be found dead at the same hotel
Married: Bobbi Kristina Brown and her de-facto
step-brother Nick Gordon appear at the premiere of reality show The
Houstons: On Our Own in New York in October 2012. They wed earlier this
month
Happy: Bobbi Kristina Brown now sports a huge
rock custom designed by Neil Lane after marrying de-facto stepbrother
Nick Brown earlier this month. Nick moved in with Bobbi and mom Whitney
Houston when he was nine and Bobbi was six
'In love': Bobbi Kristina Brown and husband Nick
Gordon step out in Georgia on January 10. They said their marriage is
what Whitney would have wanted
Left with this memento of one of the happiest days of her parents’ lives, Bobbi reveals: ‘I was there…she was pregnant with me, but she didn’t know. They found out about me during their honeymoon.’
Speaking about her parents' wedding, Bobbi adds: ‘I love her dress, and the headpiece, the matching earrings…Mom is beautiful. You see, you picked it up, how royal she was.’
New film: Documentary maker Daphne Barak chats to Bobbi Kristina Brown at home in Georgia
‘I’m working on learning how to be a woman without the woman who taught me to be a woman.’
Referring to the star she also called ‘Lioness’ because of her Leo birth sign, Bobbi says the upcoming anniversary of her mother’s death makes her realise just how much people did not really know Whitney.
‘People did not know her’, she tells Daphne: ‘They write things. But for me, she wasn’t Whitney Houston.'
Dedicated to embarking on a music career like her mother, she says: ‘I am the only one who can sing her songs like she did. She always said that if they would make a film about her, only I could play her.
‘She taught me how to sing Acapella. She taught me that singing Acapella would make my voice stronger and stronger. She taught me Gospel, she taught me for 18 years how to be royal, how to be her daughter, a woman…I am very proud of her.’
On the video, images of the reception filled with candles and lavender and white orchid arrangements alongside an 18-layer cake flash up on screen, as A-list guests ranging from Donald Trump to Whitney’s aunt Dionne Warwick and even P Diddy, can be seen sipping Cristal and Dom Perignon champagne.
Royalty: Bobbi Kristina Brown says her mom
Whitney brought her and Nick up to believe they were royal - adding:
'She always said that if they would make a film about her, only I could
play her'
Heartbroken: Bobbi Kristina Brown says: 'I called my mom my Royal Woman'. She's seen here with her parents in New York in 1994
Stooping to thank the line of children musicians, Whitney tells them: ‘Thank-you, thank-you for the treat…come, give me a kiss.'
As Daphne asks what Bobbi would want the world to know about Whitney, Bobbi pauses: ‘That she had a heart, you could not fall in love with her. Even if she cast you off - she so lovable.’
Bobbi is now awaiting the first $1.2million from her the $12million estate her mother left her to claim by the time she’s 30.
Sadly, it is patently clear just how much Whitney and Bobby were thrilled to be expecting baby Bobbi.
The couple had met at the Soul Train Music Awards in 1989 and in an interview on their marriage in Vanity Fair in December 1992, Whitney, then three-months pregnant, prophesised: ‘I think it’s a girl…’
Happy family? Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown and Bobbi Kristina Brown
Tragic: The scene outside the Beverly Hilton following Whitney Houston's death on February 11, 2012
The couple kissed and Brown patted Whitney’s stomach, adding: ‘I’m gonna spoil that baby girl….I want presents. Lots of presents. Shoes and dresses and diamonds and all that for her.’
‘You want everything, baby’, Whitney replied….’We’ll see, we’ll see.’
More of the 25-minute wedding video will be aired globally next month in a Daphne Barak special.
Filmmaker Daphne, who was also on hand to watch some of Amy Winehouse’s tragic last days in St Lucia, tells MailOnline: ‘When I saw Whitney in the video she looked like Princess Diana, so regal. In her imagination, she was royal and Bobby was her prince.
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