4 of a Kind Make a Full House

--As royal weddings go, this one was a simple affair. Only family members and senior Buddhist priests, but no foreign dignitaries, were present at the wedding of King Jigme Singye Wangchuk of Bhutan--a traditional hourlong Buddhist ceremony at an ancient monastery in Punakha, according to Bhutan Foreign Minister Dawa Tsering. It wasn’t only the lack of pomp, however, that made the ceremony unusual by Western standards. The purpose of the event was to publicly formalize Wangchuk’s marriage to four sisters he wed in private nine years ago and to name the eldest of his eight children, Jigme Gesar Namgyal Wangchuk, heir to the throne. The private wedding had “full validity,” Tsering said. But Wangchuk, 33, had long been urged by officials to consecrate publicly his marriage to the sisters and establish a line of succession, Tsering said. Celebrations are to be held for three days across the 18,000-square-mile Himalayan nation beginning Thursday, Tsering said. Marrying sisters is an old custom among Bhutanese men, he said.

--When Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander and his family moved out of the governor’s mansion in January, 1987, they headed for a six-month visit to Australia for what his wife, Honey, called a learning experience. Since Warner Bros. Television bought rights to Alexander’s book about the trip, “Six Months Off,” Alexander has turned his attention to leading man possibilities. “Robert Redford is taken in this political season,” joked Alexander. “My daughter Kathryn says Chevy Chase would be perfect.” Alexander, now president of the University of Tennessee, said his children have suggested the television movie should resemble National Lampoon’s “European Vacation,” a movie, starring Chase, about a family staggering along on a European vacation. Alexander said it could be 1990 before the show is broadcast.

--Holly Coors, Republican fund-raiser and board member of several organizations, including the U.S Air Force Academy and the American-Israel Friendship League, was granted a divorce from brewing magnate Joseph Coors, her husband of 47 years. In brief proceedings, a judge granted the petition filed by the Golden, Colo., woman, on grounds the marriage was “irretrievably broken.” The couple’s financial agreement was sealed by the court. When the divorce petition was filed last year, Holly Coors said she was seeking “a fair and equitable property settlement.” Joseph Coors, 71, is one of three grandsons of Adolph Coors, who founded the Colorado brewery in 1873.