With the world--and in turn, a horde of media and paparazzi--looking on, Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone tied the knot Friday with British filmmaker Guy Ritchie in a private, star-studded ceremony at Scotland's Skibo Castle.
It was an evening ceremony, believed to have begun at 6 p.m. GMT (10 a.m. PT) Friday, but official word of the nuptials didn't come until 12 hours later, when the Reverend Susan Brown, who presided over the ceremony, confirmed the news to reporters.
Details are still sketchy, but guests arrived Friday afternoon at the sprawling estate--where media, fans and paparazzi camped out all week for the anticipated union between the 42-year-old megastar and her 32-year-old British beau.
Popster Sting, dressed in a kilt, and wife Trudie Styler were among the first to arrive. According to the BBC, the pair showed up separately in chauffeur-driven limo with three children. Also arriving was Italian designer Donatella Versace, who pulled up to the 7,000-acre estate in a dark Range Rover.
Others attending Friday included Gwyneth Paltrow, widely reported to be the ceremony's maid of honor, and Stella McCartney, the Paris fashion designer (and daughter of Beatle Paul) believed to have created Madonna's wedding dress. George Clooney, Robin Williams, Rupert Everett and Brad Pitt also reportedly attended the ceremony.
As for the wedding itself, Ritchie reportedly wore a kilt--in the ancient hunting pattern of the MacIntosh clan, his family clan. And presiding over the ceremony was Brown, who told local papers that she planned to give the newlyweds two rolls of toilet paper as her wedding gift, because they are "long and strong, like their marriage will be."
Brown also baptized Madonna and Guy's four-month-old son, Rocco Ritchie, Thursday at the 776-year-old Dornoch Cathedral.
But other than Brown's confirmation that, yes, Guy and Madonna are now hubby and wife, few other details have surfaced. The couple are spending their honeymoon near the English village of Wilsford-cum-Lake, at a 52-acre estate owned by Sting and his wife.
Friday's ceremony, however, still remains shrouded in secrecy--this despite the carnival atmosphere that overtook the Highlands all week, and the steady stream of leaks and gossip about what Madonna would wear (or, for Guy, what he wouldn't wear under his kilt), as well as who would attend, and who wasn't invited.
Carlos Leon, the personal trainer who fathered Madonna's first child, 4-year-old Lourdes, was supposedly set to attend the wedding. But Madonna's brother, Martin Ciccone--who's currently in rehab in New York--told newspapers he was not invited.
Also among the uninvited: The paparazzi. Amid the swarm of shutterbugs hoping to get a glimpse of Madonna and Guy, two men were arrested by police after they tried to hide inside the Dornoch Cathedral to record Thursday's baptism of little Rocco.
Police told Reuters that the plot involved one of them hiding inside an organ loft for more than 24 hours. The second man was arrested six hours later at a Dornoch hotel.
Security was tight throughout the week, as three teams equipped with thermal heat-seeking equipment scouted the forests around the castle to hunt for potential intruders. Three paparazzi were reportedly tossed from the grounds.
That, however, is just a fraction of the estimated 1,000 reporters who invaded the tiny town of Dornoch for a wedding involving the closest thing to American pop royalty. This marks Madonna's second go at marriage, after tying the knot to Sean Penn in a made-for-the-tabloids ceremony in Malibu in 1985. They divorced four years later.
This is the first marriage for Ritchie, whose film credits include Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch.
(ORIGINALLY POSTED at 12:40 p.m. PT on 12/22/00)