Pitt, Jolie announce engagement, but no wedding date

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie haven’t set a wedding date yet, but their recently announced engagement “is a promise for the future,” Pitt’s manager, Cynthia Pett-Dante, said in an email on April 13.

Pitt, 48, and Jolie, 36, have six children together. “Their kids are very happy,” Pett-Dante also said.

Jeweler Robert Procop worked with Pitt to design the ring. A news release describes it as featuring a long diamond amid a “galaxy of smaller stones.” It took a year to design.

The A-list celebrities have been partners since they began a relationship in 2005 while working on the film “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”

Already megawatt superstars in their own right, the romantic pairing of Pitt and Jolie instantly made them Hollywood’s most glamorous and photographed couple. The fact that Pitt was still married to Jennifer Anniston when he met Jolie only added to the tabloid fodder; Pitt and Aniston divorced in 2005 after five years of marriage.

As the couple dubbed “Brangelina” added to their family over the years through the adoption and birth of their children, the question always swirled as to when – or whether – the two would ever wed.

For some time, it seemed as if they might not. They often spoke about how they were comfortable without an official arrangement, and Pitt famously said he didn’t want to get married until gays and lesbians had the same right.

“Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able,” Pitt told Esquire in 2006.

Responding to this week’s announcement, a spokesperson for Equality California, the statewide LGBT civil rights group, told TMZ, “Marriage is something that says ‘we’re a family’ in a way that nothing else can. No one has to deny that for themselves or their family to prove they are an ally and supporter of equality.”

GLAAD told the LA Times, “We congratulate them on their engagement and thank them for continuing to speak out about the inequality that so many gay and lesbian couples face today. No loving and committed couple should be denied the happiness, joy, and legal protections that come with marriage.”

Pitt’s support for marriage equality included a $100,000 donation to fight the anti-gay Prop 8 campaign. More recently he appeared in a play reading about the marriage equality battle in California.

Jolie was briefly married to Billy Bob Thornton, but they divorced in 2003. She was also married to British actor Jonny Lee Miller before they divorced in 1999.

Jolie won an Oscar for her role in 1999’s “Girl, Interrupted.” Pitt was recently nominated for an Academy Award for his role in last year’s “Moneyball.”

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