American actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have started their honeymoon after a lavish wedding in Italy.
The couple exchanged wedding vows in a floodlit Odescalchi castle, near Rome, attended by a Scientology minister and a host of show business stars.
Fans and press had to brave cloudbursts and then fog to catch even the most fleeting glimpse of the celebrities.
The couple flew out of Rome on Sunday for a honeymoon in the Maldives, said Ciampino airport spokesman.
The centre of the small town of Bracciano was sealed off from Friday night and extra police were brought in.
As darkness fell, oil-fed torches glowed from the battlements of the 15th Century castle, which rises above the town on the shores of Lake Bracciano.
Cruise’s publicist, Arnold Robinson, told the Associated Press news agency that the ceremony was performed in front of more than 150 relatives and friends.
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The guest list included fellow Hollywood stars Jennifer Lopez, Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, Jim Carrey, and Richard Gere.
Holmes wore a Giorgio Armani dress, with an ivory train adorned with lace and crystal embroidery, while Cruise wore an Armani tuxedo, reports said.
After the ceremony, the couple were serenaded by Italian singer Andrea Bocelli.
Holmes and their seven-month-old daughter, Suri, arrived at the castle earlier in the day, followed by Cruise.
Cruise, 44, and Holmes, 27, got engaged in June 2005, two months after they were first photographed together in Rome.
Cruise, who has starred in Mission Impossible and War of The Worlds, said he proposed to Holmes on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
It is Cruise’s third wedding. He was previously married to actresses Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman.
He adopted children with Kidman before they divorced in 2001.
THE MARRIAGE IS DOOMED, SAYS PSYCHIC
With the wedding of Hollywood couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes only a few hours away on Saturday, a top celebrity psychic Kenny Kingston warned that the marriage is doomed.
Kingston who counts actress Marilyn Monroe among his spirit world guides, claims the couple have picked a very lucky date for their Italian nuptials - but that won’t help them stay together. He insists that the spirit world is displeased about the union, and the actress could already be pregnant with the couple’s second child together.
“Like many mortals, the spirits think this marriage is unusual and it’s doomed from the start. The spirits tell me that, if it all goes ahead, it will be a very short-lived marriage. They are very displeased with this whole union and they don’t like the fact the couple’s child was born out of wedlock.
“They’re all for lovechildren because the spirit world plans them, but this is not a lovechild,” Contactmusic quoted him as saying.
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