Jade Goody, the reality television star diagnosed with terminal cancer, has fulfilled her dying wish by marrying fiancé Jack Tweed.
As with every other stage in Goody's life since she found fame on Big Brother seven years ago, the ceremony took place amid a media circus.
A television crew was on hand to capture the moment Goody, 27, exchanged vows with fiancé Jack Tweed, while a celebrity magazine paid £750,000 for the exclusive picture rights.
Goody organised the wedding in just seven days after learning she has weeks to live. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer in August and chemotherapy treatment failed to halt the spread of the disease
"It was a very heart-rending, happy ceremony. There were lots of tears and lots of smiles. She looked absolutely beautiful," said her publicist, Max Clifford, adding that the wedding had lifted her spirits: "She's absolutely thrilled. She's like a little one who has just woken up on Christmas Day."
Guests at the venue, Down Hall in Hertfordshire, dined on lobster tagliatelle and were serenaded by pop group Sugababes.
The bride wore a £3,500 gown donated by Harrods boss Mohamed Fayed. The 21-year-old groom wore an electronic tag, a condition of his early release from prison where he served a sentence for assault. The couple were able to spend their wedding night together after Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, relaxed Tweed's curfew.
Despite her failing health, Goody was determined to walk down the aisle and a pocket was sewn into the lining of her dress to conceal an intravenous morphine supply. Nurses from the Royal Marsden Hospital were in attendance.
She was given away by her grandfather, John Craddock, who said it was both the happiest and saddest day of his life.
Goody has struck media deals in order to provide for her sons Bobby, five, and Freddie, four, after her death. Proceeds from the wedding will go into a trust fund and she wishes them to be privately educated, giving them the opportunities she was denied. Goody endured a miserable childhood on a council estate in Bermondsey, south London, brought up by a heroin-addicted lesbian mother.
The decision to turn her illness into a public spectacle has left some feeling uneasy. However, she received words of support yesterday from Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, who urged people to pray for her.
"A lot of people might say it's better if everything is quiet, but I think she's made a decision that she wants the last months of her life to teach people something," he said. Goody hopes her ordeal will dispel some of the taboos surrounding cervical cancer, and doctors report a significant increase in young women requesting smear tests.
Her life has been lived in public ever since her appearance on Channel 4's Big Brother in 2002, when her ignorance – such as a belief that there was a foreign country called "East Angular" - endeared her to the nation.
In 2007, she was branded a racist bully for her treatment of fellow Celebrity Big Brother contestant Shilpa Shetty, and became a national hate figure. Effigies of Goody were burned on the streets of India and she signed up for an Indian version of Big Brother last summer in an attempt to make amends. While there, she received her cancer diagnosis live on television.
Mr Clifford said of Goody's entrance: "She kept him waiting for about 45 minutes, but that's her prerogative, I'm told. It was lovely. The chapel was absolutely beautiful and there must have been close to 200 people there. When they came out after signing the register they got a standing ovation from everybody there."
Goody was unable to stand for the whole ceremony, asking near the end if she could sit down. However, Mr Clifford said: "I think it's a huge relief that she was able to handle it the way she did, because obviously it's been a huge worry to her."
The couple were "thrilled" to be spending what could be their only night of married life together. "They'll be spending the night together here, compliments of Jack Straw. We're very grateful to him for that," he said.
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12:02 AM
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