Kidman weds Urban in her own special love story

By Paul Tait

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Church bells rang to mark Oscar-winning
actress Nicole Kidman’s own special love story when she married
country music singer Keith Urban in a traditional Catholic
ceremony at a cliff-top chapel in Sydney on Sunday.

Police and private security guards held back hundreds of
well-wishers and international media as Kidman arrived for the
twilight ceremony at a sandstone chapel set on a sprawling
estate overlooking Sydney Harbor and the Pacific Ocean.

Kidman beamed and waved as she arrived in a convoy of cream
Rolls Royce wedding cars just before 5:30 p.m. (0730 GMT).

Church bells pealed across the estate about an hour later,
with local media reporting the ceremony had been completed.
Calls to Kidman’s publicists seeking confirmation were not
immediately returned.

Kidman, 39, wore an elegant ivory-colored dress, reportedly
designed by French fashion house Balenciaga, and sheer veil and
carried a simple posy of white roses.

Helicopters buzzed overhead as Kidman drove from her ritzy
Sydney harborside home. Well-wishers and photographers got
within arms-reach of her car as she arrived for the wedding.

Australian television reported that Kidman’s friends, Oscar
winner Russell Crowe and Broadway and film star Hugh Jackman,
were among the guests.

Jackman, set to star beside Kidman in an upcoming World War
Two movie directed by Baz Luhrmann, was to sing at the service
and a string quartet also played.

“It’s a very special love story,” Luhrmann, who directed
Kidman in the Oscar-winning movie “Moulin Rouge,” said of the
wedding.

Kidman was given away by her father Antony, a prominent
Sydney psychologist. Her sister Antonia, 13-year-old daughter
Isabella and niece Lucia were in the bridal party and her
11-year-old son Connor was an usher.

Songwriter and former Crowded House singer Neil Finn was
also among guests and was reportedly to sing at the reception,
to be held in a white marquee built off the Gothic-style
central building in the former seminary.

Media have speculated that Grammy-winner Urban, who arrived
more inconspicuously in a blue four-wheel drive vehicle, would
serenade Kidman with his hit “I Want to Be Your Everything.”

Kidman’s friend, “King Kong” star Naomi Watts, also
traveled to Sydney for the wedding.

Other guests, sworn to secrecy in the days leading up to
the ceremony, were ferried in a convoy of buses from a luxury
city hotel to the Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel.

Kidman, who won a Academy Award for her role in the 2002
film “The Hours,” had a very public divorce from actor Tom
Cruise in 2001, ending a 10-year marriage. They have remained
friends, sharing custody of their two adopted children.

Father Paul Coleman, a Jesuit priest who was to perform the
ceremony, has said Kidman, 39, and Urban, 38, have a “mature
love” which has impressed him.

Coleman said he had told them to “make time for each other,
do romantic things together and never part without kissing.”

Kidman and Urban, both Australians but born overseas, met
in January 2005 at an awards dinner held by the Australian
government in Los Angeles honoring the two of them.

Their every move has been tracked by the media over the
past week, with paparazzi camped outside Kidman’s home.

“I’m so happy,” Kidman told reporters before a quiet dinner
with her parents on Saturday.

Urban spent the last night before his first marriage at
what was described as a “sedate” buck’s night at a trendy city
bar.