Jade Goody, the reality television star suffering from terminal cancer, today married fiancé Jack Tweed amid huge security designed to keep hordes of waiting media at bay.

Miss Goody, 27, and Mr Tweed, 21, took their vows in a ceremony described as being filled with tears and laughter at the Down Hall Country House Hotel in Hatfield Heath, Essex.

Speaking outside the hotel Max Clifford, Miss Goody's publicist, said: “They are now man and wife.”

He added that the bride was able to stand up for most of the 45-minute ceremony but asked to sit down for the final five minutes. Earlier, it emerged that she had decided to go ahead with the wedding despite being taken ill the night before.

“It started at 12.45pm so I suppose she kept him waiting for about 45 minutes, but that’s her prerogative I’m told," Mr Clifford added.

“It was lovely. The chapel was absolutely beautiful and I imagine there must be close to 200 people there. When they came out having signed the register they got a standing ovation from everybody there. It was just a very heart-rending, happy ceremony with lots of tears and lots of smiles and lots of laughter.”

He added: “It was just a very beautiful, very moving service. (The couple are) obviously very much in love, which the bishop commented on. They were very happy to be there and get married. I think it’s a huge relief that she was able to handle it the way she did, because obviously it’s been a worry to her.”

Police mounted a significant operation with officers joining private security guards at the entrance to the hotel where photographers had gathered.

The couple have sold picture rights to the wedding to a magazine for £1 million and hired the hotel for the day. Miss Goody has said that she wants all of the money she has gained from the wedding's publicity to go to her children after she dies.

Mr Tweed of Ongar, Essex, was given an 18-month jail term after being convicted of assaulting a teenage boy with a golf club, in September. He was released from prison earlier this year on licence.

One of the conditions of his licence is that he must live at an address in Buckhurst Hill, Essex, and observe a curfew that does not allow him to go out of the house after 7pm.

However, Ministry of Justice officials last week intervened to vary the condition of the curfew and allow Mr Tweed to spend his wedding night with his new bride. Mr Clifford said the couple were "thrilled" that they could spend what might be “their only night together”.

“This is their one night together. It might be their only night together. They’ll be spending the night together here, compliments of Jack Straw. We’re very grateful to him for that," he said.

“I know that both Jade and Jack are thrilled that they can spend the one night together. Then probably she’ll go home at some point tomorrow.”

Setting off for the wedding, Mr Tweed left the house in Buckhurst Hill dressed in a white bra, white panties and white socks. He was with a number of other friends who were also dressed in women’s underwear.

He and his friends were assumed to have dressed as they made the journey from Buckhurst Hill to Hatfield Heath in a blue Rolls Royce.

Mr Tweed eventually arrived at the hotel shortly before 10am, dressed in a blue track suit with a yellow number "3" motif. Miss Goody flew to the hotel by helicopter late on Saturday from her home in Upshire, Essex.

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