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Sarkozy's ex to say 'I do'
23/03/2008 19:09 - (SA)
New York - Nicolas Sarkozy's ex-wife is to marry her Moroccan-born lover at New York's glitzy Rainbow Room on Sunday, just over a month after the French president wed former model and singer Carla Bruni.
According to a programme of the celebrations seen by AFP, Sarkozy's ex-wife, who goes by Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz, was to marry Richard Attias, a multi-millionaire events organiser, at a black tie ceremony at 23:00 GMT.
Around 150 guests, many of whom flew in from Europe for the nuptials, were to celebrate with the couple at the 65th-floor Rainbow Room, one of the best-known private venues in New York.
Part of the Art Deco Rockefeller Centre dating from the 1930s, it features chandeliers, a revolving dance floor and views stretching across Manhattan.
According to the programme, the ceremony was to be followed by cocktails and dinner at the Rainbow Room, described by New York Magazine as "one place true New Yorkers expect never to visit" and catering for "easy-to-impress tourists".
Details surrounding the wedding had been shrouded in secrecy. Rumours had suggested the couple would hold a Jewish ceremony at a New York synagogue on Sunday, but there was no mention of any religious ceremony on the programme.
Guests of the couple kicked off three days of celebrations on Friday with a party at Attias's Connecticut home. On Saturday, they were treated to dinner at an upmarket 1920s steakhouse just off Broadway.
They later took in the ABBA-themed Broadway show Mamma Mia!
A slap in the face
According to reports, guests have been told not to bring cameras or phones with cameras, to protect the couple's privacy.
Other reports said that French magazine Paris-Match had declined an offer of exclusive rights to cover the wedding, apparently over fears of upsetting Sarkozy, known to be friends with the magazine's owner, Arnaud Lagardere.
Ciganer-Albeniz's involvement with Attias first became public when the couple were photographed stepping out of a New York hotel together in 2005, during a break in Ciganer-Albeniz's marriage to Sarkozy.
Rumours had been circulating for weeks that Ciganer-Albeniz, 50, was to marry Attias, 48, and Italian fashion house Versace let the cat out of the bag earlier this month, when it said it would be dressing the couple for the event.
Ciganer-Albeniz and Sarkozy, 53, announced their divorce last October, ending a stormy 11-year marriage. In February, less than four months later, Sarkozy married Bruni, 40, an Italian-born former model turned singer.
According to reports quoting her friends, Ciganer-Albeniz took Sarkozy's swift remarriage to a woman 10 years her junior as a slap in the face and had brought forward her marriage to Attias as an act of "revenge".
Sunday's marriage will be Ciganer-Albeniz's third. She first met Sarkozy in 1984 when, as mayor of the Paris suburb of Neuilly, he officiated at her wedding to late television presenter Jacques Martin.
The story goes that Sarkozy vowed there and then to marry her one day.
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