This extravagant desert wedding was actually an elaborate scam, according to the groom

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A million-dollar desert wedding complete with private jets, Dior, and celebrity guests was merely a mirage, according to the man who was once the assumed groom. Three years after marrying Potamkin Auto Group heiress Andi Potamkin in what appeared to be one of the most extravagant desert weddings ever, Jordan Blackmore, a celebrity hairstylist, discovered that he'd been at the center of a very well thought-out scam, The Fashion Law reports. As it turns out, Blackmore and Potamkin were never actually married at all.

According to The Fashion Law, the wedding — which took place in the Utah desert on November 7, 2015 — was the picture of excess: a four-day event that involved private jets, celebrity guests like Elizabeth Olsen and Alexis Nichole Smith, designer fashion, and lodging at a resort with rooms that set guests back $2,200 a night and up.

It was quite a spectacle. As reported by Coveteur, the 60 guests were asked to "dress to turn heads" and change their outfits multiple times during the celebration. There was plenty of entertainment, too — watercolor and yoga classes, special guided tours, zip lining, hiking, and karaoke, among other activities. It was a veritable mini Coachella, only with less glitter.

Unfortunately, despite all the work, planning, and hype that went into the black-tie event, including the $25,000 month-long honeymoon the couple embarked on afterwards, it never meant a thing — at least, in the eyes of the law. After living through three years of what Blackmore assumed was the married life, he learned in 2018 that the wedding hadn't been legally binding; this May, he filed a $2 million suit against Potamkin, accusing her of duping him into believing they had actually been married.

How did she pull this off, according to Blackmore? The wedding's officiant, a friend of the bride's, was not ordained so could not legally wed the pair, a fact Blackmore alleges Potamkin was fully aware of. Blackmore only discovered his marriage was not, in fact, legally-binding after Potamkin filed for separation in December 2018. While reading the settlement agreement, Blackmore found that the document referred to his wedding as simply a "symbolic ceremony," not a legitimate, binding event under the law.

According to Blackmore's suit, filed in a Brooklyn federal court this month, Potamkin and her father, Alan, worked together to orchestrate a sham wedding because they were concerned that Blackmore wouldn't be amenable to signing a prenup agreement. Blackmore's suit states that he did sign one, however, which makes things all the more confusing. Still he insists per the suit that both Potamkin and her father "fraudulently induced" him "unwittingly to participate in a wedding that was a sham."

In the suit, Blackmore also claims that although Potamkin often told him she wanted to get married, he believes she never had any intention of actually following through; according to him, she just wanted "a lavish wedding experience, a public relations stunt, and the attention that came with it.”

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For her part, Potamkin (seen above) refutes Blackmore's story, with her lawyers arguing in court recently that Blackmore knew the wedding wasn't official and that the duo would need to go to a courthouse afterwards to make it legal. In May, Potamkin told The New York Post that the lawsuit includes "tons of untrue and irrelevant information" about her family, and that she and Blackmore simply "consciously uncoupled." And in an interview with The Cut, Potamkin's lawyers said, "While it is unfortunate that the marriage has ended, the failure of a marriage does not justify Mr. Blackmore’s use of the legal process as a manifestation of his disappointment."

The couple's romance seemed real enough. As the Post reported, the pair first met in a Miami nightclub and dated for four years afterwards, with Blackmore asking each of Andi's divorced parents for her hand in marriage. He then offered her a massive $90,000 engagement ring, following which the couple got matching tattoos declaring their love for one another. That level of commitment — not to mention the fact that they spent three years as a married couple — doesn't conjure the word "scam" immediately like some whirlwind romances or fly-by-night situations do.

The whole scenario is somewhat baffling, but one thing's for sure — the duo's wedding, legal or not, was one for the books. It's just too bad it turned out to be nothing more than what it appeared as to envious outsiders: a dream.