Britney Spears’ wedding dress has been in the works for months

With Britney Spears set to marry Sam Asghari Thursday, she’ll finally be able to don the wedding gown she revealed back in November was being designed by her good friend, Donatella Versace.

TMZ, Page Six and People reported that wedding preparations were underway Thursday, with TMZ posting photos of a massive tent going up in the backyard of Spears’ Thousand Oaks home.

“It’s a huge deal to her that she is finally able to get married,” a source told People in another report. “She wants it to be perfect. She is so excited that she feels overwhelmed. She is very emotional.”

The outlets said that 50 to 100 of their close friends and family would be there, including Spears’ brother Bryan. But TMZ said that Spears’ estranged parents, Jamie and Lynne, and her sister, Jamie Lynn, would not be there. They didn’t receive invitations after their fallout over her conservatorship battle.

During that battle last year, Spears, 40, offered harrowing testimony about the control her father exercised as her conservator since 2008. She said she was forced to perform while sick and use an IUD to prevent her from becoming pregnant. She told the judge about wanting “to get married and have a baby, I was told right now in the conservatorship, I am not able to get married or have a baby.”

Following that testimony, Spears’ father was removed as conservator. In September, Spears announced that she and fitness trainer Asghari, 28, had become engaged. He popped the question by presenting her with 4-carat round-cut diamond ring, People reported.

In November, around the time that the conservatorship was officially terminated, Spears revealed that wedding planning was in the works, specifically that Versace was designing her wedding dress, reported Dazed Digital.

“Donatella Versace is making my dress as we speak … Have a good night folks!!!!,” Spears wrote.

Spears and Versace’s friendship and professional collaboration goes way back, according to Dazed Digital. Spears has long favored Versace’s “glitzy, shredded looks for her music videos, red carpet appearances and live performances,” Dazed Digital said. Versace, meanwhile, has long expressed her admiration for Spears and was vocal in support of the #freebritney movement.

In May 2021, Versace uploaded a throwback photo of the two of them to Instagram, writing “This flashback is when she came to my show in 2002, looking glamorous in Versace. I’ll never forget when you came and stayed with me Britney, you were and always will be magical!!!!”

Versace’s designs have long been a favorite of many celebrities. In terms of bridal wear,  she designed the wedding gown that Angelina Jolie wore when she married Brad Pitt in 2014. Sadly, that marriage only lasted two years.

Things, hopefully, will go much better for Spears and Asghari, who have been dating since 2017. They were first romantically linked after they met on the set of the singer’s “Slumber Party” music video in 2016, People reported.

Sources also previously told People that the Iranian-born actor has “been Britney’s rock for years,” and he was at Spears’ side throughout her battle to end her 13-year conservatorship. The couple also were united in their grief when Spears suffered a miscarriage last month.

Spears’ marriage to Asghari will be her third. She first married childhood friend Jason Alexander in a rushed Las Vegas wedding in early 2004. It was a quickie marriage as well, lasting only 55 hours before Spears had a change of heart and asked for an annulment, Brides reported.

Nine months later, she married Kevin Federline, with whom she had two children, sons Sean Preston, now 16, and Jayden James, now 15. Spears and Federline divorced in 2007.