Jim Verraros's Dream Wedding

From the matching Tom Ford bowties to the unity sand ceremony to the 10-ft. ice sculpture bar, the wedding of American Idol's Jim Verraros to entrepreneur Bill Brennan on Sunday was planned down to the last detail.

"Every little choice reflected who we are," says Verraros, who finished ninth on Idol's first season. "It was the most beautiful day."

The couple, who wed at the Oak Brook Hills Resort in Illinois, exchanged self-penned vows under dragonwood trees decorated with white hydrangeas, orchids and roses. The singer, 26, in a tuxedo by Ermenegildo Zegna and shoes by Christian Dior, walked down the aisle strewn with white rose petals to the tunes of a classical trio playing Johann Sebastian Bach's "Air."

The outdoor event included a unity sand ceremony in which the couple and their family members poured individual glasses of colored sand into a large vase.

"Since this is a gay wedding, we wanted both traditional touches as well as original ones," says Verraros, whose father Nicholas Verraros and Brennan's father William Sr. served as best men.

"Gay marriage is not legal in Illinois," Verraros says, "but we wanted the day to be a reflection of our love and commitment to each other as well as a statement to other gay couples in Illinois."

Party Time

After the ceremony, the newlyweds and their 174 guests enjoyed cocktails by an ice sculpture bar carved with three lions. The old Hollywood-themed reception was held inside a tent, where florist Anthony Gowder had created 5-ft. centerpieces made of roses, amaranthus, white orchids, willow branches and hanging crystals.

After the first dance, to Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love," the couple cut their 4 ½-ft. tall white wedding cake with vanilla buttercream frosting before hitting the dance floor until midnight to a 10-piece orchestra playing 1940's tunes to contemporary dance music.

Verraros and Brennan met four years ago when Brennan sent the singer a message to his MySpace account. "We found out we lived 20 minutes apart," says Verraros, who was born and raised in Crystal Lake, Ill. "I wanted to meet someone with substance and he changed my life. He's an incredible person."

The singer recently released two new singles, "Touch (Don't U Want 2)" and "Electric Love," on YouTube. He's currently working on his next album.

American Idol's Jim Verraros is Getting Married

Sunday is the big day! Jim Verraros and his fiancee Bill Brennan will tie the knot in Chicago.

Jim, 26, starred in the first two "Eating Out" movies and was a finalist during the first season of American Idol. He and Bill, 42, met in 2005 on, of all places, MySpace, and discovered that they only lived 20 minutes apart from each other in the Chicago area.

“The whole blond-haired, blue-eyed thing piqued my interest,” Jim said when we chatted recently. “He’s very warm and down to earth. We talked seven hours that first night, I moved in a couple of months later and never left.”

They were two-and-half years into their relationship when Bill, president of Bridal Expo Chicago, pulled a white gold ring with eight diamonds out of his pocket.

“Being a gay male in this day and age you don’t really think about marriage,” Jim admitted. “He’s in the business and he really wanted to have a wedding,. Everything changed for me when I met.”

On a website dedicated to their wedding, Bill said: “As with many couples who first start dating, we had some bumps in the road that first year. But we worked through them and became a better couple because of those bumps. When I proposed to Jim nearly a year and a half ago, I knew I found my soul mate and my best friend. I look back to November of 2005 and remember the kind of person I was back then and how incomplete I felt. Finding Jim has changed me and has helped me become a better person. And most of all, I have never felt more complete or fulfilled than in any time I have walked this earth.”

“People say, ‘Why are you even doing it if it’s not even legal?’ We don’t have to wait for the government to tell us it’s okay, we’re doing it anyway. It’s more about our family and friends and people we care about witnessing something that is true and beautiful. It’s important for us to see our family to see something that is very traditional. Hopefully we will begin to create a movement. You can still have a wedding and no one has to tell you you cant do it.”

Jim plans to sing to Bill at tomorrow’s festivities and they have gone all out with such things as an ice sculpture bar with the MGM lions carved at the bottom and a 10-piece orchestra. Each of their fathers will serve as their best man.

Jim the groom is a bit more buff than Jim the Idol contestant. He has added 20 pounds of muscle to his frame through intensive workouts.

“You get to a point in your life when you are ready for a change and you get to it,” he said. “I changed my diet and threw myself in the gym to see how far I could take my body, I got tired of being that geeky dork from the Eating Out movies.”

Jim has released some albums and is still keeping active musically:”I just put two songs on iTunes off the record., playing it by ear and giving it to fans still interested in following me….no pressure, I have my life, the fans have always been supprtive.”