AS one might expect from Tom Cruise, it was a production of Hollywood proportions. His wedding to Katie Holmes yesterday in the 15th-century Castle Odescalchi outside Rome had a budget of more than £1.2m, with guest stars including Jennifer Lopez, Jim Carrey, Will Smith and Brooke Shields, a lavish banquet, fireworks and thousands of rose-scented candles.

The bride was resplendent in a fitted Giorgio Armani off-the-shoulder gown with a train in ivory silk caddis decorated with Valenciennes lace and Swarovski beaded crystal embroidery. She had also spent $4,000 on lingerie for her wedding night, said friends.

The groom also wore Armani, a single-breasted navy blue handmade tuxedo with matching waistcoat. His ivory silk shirt was made of the same fabric as the bride’s gown.

Holmes’s father Martin walked her down the aisle and she carried a bouquet of flowers made by Armani which included calla lilies wrapped in leaves of galax and steel grass.

David Miscavige, leader of the church of Scientology and a best friend of the groom, was best man and Holmes’s sister Nancy Blaylock was matron of honour.

The bride changed to a champagne coloured Armani evening dress of silk organza sparkling with Swarovsky crystals for the reception with her new husband sporting a two button Armani suit again in navy blue.

Earlier, amid feverish speculation over who would attend, David Beckham had arrived in Rome for a pre-wedding dinner. Yesterday, however, he was nowhere in sight. He had had to return to Madrid for duty with his football club. However, his wife Victoria was one of the guests.

Although cynics might see the extravaganza as Marriage Improbable III for the twice-divorced Cruise — who could do with some good publicity — there was genuine excitement and well-wishing among the crowd.

Licia Muccari, 19, an aspiring singer, had been in Bracciano since 7am holding a banner reading “Tom and Katie welcome home”. The couple had filmed part of Cruise’s last blockbuster, Mission Impossible III, in the town. Muccari said: “Our passion for them is strong. I admire them both.”

Also among the crowd was Anastasia Cotini, 13, from Bracciano, who with four friends waved a banner saying “Tom and Katie many congratulations”.

Cotini said: “We’re very pleased that he’s getting married. But my friend is disappointed because she wanted to marry Tom Cruise.”

However, the couple’s reluctance to acknowledge well-wishers who braved rain squalls and waited patiently for hours at the castle gates upset the town’s mayor, Patrizia Riccioni. “It would have been nice if the couple had shown themselves to the public even for a brief moment,” she said. “Nevertheless, I have nothing against the couple, to whom I am very grateful for all the international publicity.”

Cruise is the most famous adherent of the church of Scientology, and Holmes took up the faith under his guidance. A Scientology service is not legally valid in Italy, and they had not applied for a Christian church or civil ceremony.

Though the service is similar in outline to a Christian one the wording, written by L Ron Hubbard, the science fiction author and co-founder of Scientology, is rather different (see box right).

The nuptial history of the castle was not entirely auspicious. It is said to be haunted by the ghost of Isabella de Medici, wife of Baron Paolo Giordano Orsini, a former owner. He had Isabella strangled so he could remarry.

The bookmaker William Hill pondered whether to offer odds on how long the “TomKat” union would last. Onlookers were more charitable wishing Cruise, who at 44 is 17 years older and 2in shorter than Holmes, good luck and much happiness.

How the ceremony may have gone

If yesterday’s service followed a typical Scientology wedding it would have included the words:

Minister to groom:

“Now, Tom, girls need clothes and food and tender happiness and frills, a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat.

“All caprice if you will, but still they need them. Keep her, well or ill. And when she’s older do you keep her still?”

The minister may also have warned Cruise: “The tides of fortune and of life are sometimes fair or grim.”

Minister to bride:

“Hear well, Katie, for promise binds. Young men are free and may forget. Remind him then that you may have necessities and follies, too.

“Know that life is stark and often somewhat grim, and tiredness and fret and pain and sickness do beget a state of mind where spring romance is far away and dead.”

Ministers ask couples to keep Scientology’s tenet of affinity, reality and communication (ARC) and not to let disputes last more than a day.

Explore World News

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

Times Recommends

• Burma's victims and the fight for life
• Mexico in the grip of drugs carnage
• Amputee sprinter allowed to compete in Beijing