Paparazzi in three helicopters floated above.
More uninvited long lenses hid in bushland bordering the compound.
De Rossi and DeGeneres found the frenzy humorous at the time, but today instead of helicopters there is a storm cloud hovering over their marriage and the nuptials of the thousands of other gay couples who took advantage of California's new marriage laws.
[comment caption=Do you think same-sex couples should be allowed to marry?]California's Supreme Court justices ruled 4-3 in May to allow same sex couples to walk down the aisle.
That ruling could be overturned next week by California voters.
"I don't want to have to return the china my wedding guests gave me," DeGeneres joked on her TV talk show a few weeks back while pleading with California viewers to support the same-sex marriage law.
On November 4, not only will Americans choose their next president, they will be asked to vote on a long list of political, financial and moral issues.
The issues vary state by state.
When Californians enter a polling booth and close the curtain, they will vote "yes" or "no" on 12 separate "propositions" critical to the future of their state.
They include Proposition 1A, which requires voters to decide the fate a bond to fund a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Proposition 2, calling for the banning of the confinement of farm animals in tiny pens, including calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens and pregnant pigs.
Proposition 4 asks voters to decide if pregnant minors should be prohibited from having an abortion until 48 hours after their physician notifies a parent or legal guardian.
Propositions 7 and 10 involve renewable energy and alternative fuel plans.
It is Proposition 8 that is generating the most heat.
It will decide if the California Supreme Court's decision to allow same-sex couples to marry should stand.
More than $US60 million ($NZ106.8 million) has been raised by the competing factions to clog the airwaves with ads.
On one side you have the "Yes" campaign lobbying Californians to change the state's "Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California".
The "Yes" group is led by Protectmarriage.com, a coalition of religious and community groups.
The "No" block, lobbying for the same-sex marriage laws to remain, is backed by the state's major newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee and San Francisco Chronicle, and celebrities DeGeneres, Brad Pitt and Steven Spielberg.
Blue-chip companies Google and Apple have also thrown their support behind gay marriage, donating $US140,000 and $US100,000 respectively.
Switch on a TV set in California today and you are not hit with a barrage of Barack Obama or John McCain presidential ads.
You are confronted with Proposition 8 ads.
It is a fait accompli Obama will win California, with polls showing him ahead 58.7 percent to McCain's 34 percent, so both presidential candidates have pulled up stumps in the state and headed to the eastern battleground states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina, where they are spending tens of millions of dollars on ads.
"Prop 8 is such an unprecedented situation," Kate Kendell, executive committee member of the "No on 8" campaign, told AAP.
"You have a state where same-sex couples can marry and are marrying and now we face the proposition that would eliminate that right.
"It has never been the case in any state the voters have gone to the polls to eliminate rights of the fellow citizens." DeGeneres has used her TV talk show as a vehicle to promote the "No" campaign, grilling McCain when he appeared as a guest on the show and making direct appeals to her loyal fans in California.
DeGeneres also stars in her own TV ad that airs regularly on California TV networks and has become a hit on YouTube.
The "Yes" campaign has received the support of religious groups inside and outside California, including the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Religious groups outside California fear legal same-sex marriage could spread to other states if the "Yes" campaign on Proposition 8 fails.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has sent letters and held video conferences seeking support to ban same-sex marriage in California and reports suggest 40 percent of the "Yes" campaign's donations came from the church.
Orthodox Jews and evangelical groups are also supporting the "Yes" campaign and California's Catholic bishops are united in their support of a same-sex marriage ban.
Earlier this month the Reverend Father Geoffrey Farrow, a priest at Fresno's St Paul Newman Centre, north of Los Angeles, was removed from his parish and stripped of his salary and benefits when he announced he was gay and opposed his bishop's wishes to support the gay marriage ban.
"How is marriage protected by intimidating gay and lesbian people into loveless and lonely lives?" Father Farrow told parishioners in the sermon that landed him in hot water.
"I am morally compelled to vote no on Proposition 8." In a disciplinary letter, the 50-year-old priest's bishop, John T Steinbock, wrote: "Your statement contradicted the teaching of the Catholic Church and has brought scandal to your parish community as well as the whole Church." Eight students at a school in Temecula, south-east of Los Angeles, refused to go to school on Monday to protest the state teachers' union support of gay marriage.
It is the perceived impact of gay marriage on children that is a focus of the "Yes" campaign.
"Since the dawn of mankind every religion, every culture has always recognised marriage was between a man and a woman," Meg Waters, spokesperson for the "Yes" campaign, told AAP.
"More importantly we are doing this to protect children because we believe children deserve a mother and a father.
"We don't want to have children in our public school system taught about gay marriage.
"It is already happening in Massachusetts, which is the other state that has gay marriage.
"They should be children and not have to learn about these types of things when they are so little and in school." An ad funded by Protectmarriage.com and airing over and over again in recent weeks on TV sets has outraged DeGeneres and gay marriage supporters who launched counter commercials.
In the commercial, which can be seen on YouTube, a young girl dressed in pink and her hair in pig tails, runs into the kitchen of her family's home carrying the controversial children's book King & King.
She hands the book to her mother.
It tells the story of a prince who, under pressure from the monarchy to marry a princess, instead falls in love with another prince.
"Mum, guess what I learned in school today?" the girl excitedly says.
"What sweetie?" the mum replies.
"I learned how a prince can marry a prince and I can marry a princess," the girl, looking innocently up at her mum, says.
Mum isn't happy.
The camera closes in on her shocked face.
It looks like mum just chewed a lemon.
Then on the right hand side of the screen, Professor Richard Peterson, of Pepperdine University School of Law, appears.
"Think it can't happen?" Peterson asks viewers.
"It's already happened.
"When Massachusetts legalised gay marriage, schools began teaching second graders boys can marry boys.
"The courts ruled parents had no right to object." If Californians vote to ban gay marriage on November 4, the wedding certificates of de Rossi and DeGeneres and the thousands of other gay couples married in California since May will not be torn up.
Proposition 8 does not order the marriages to be made illegal.
But both factions are gearing up for a court battle that may lead to that.
"Undoubtedly there will be people who support this discrimination (who) will challenge and seek to invalidate those marriages," Kendell said.
"But we believe those efforts will not be successful." AAP sm
