Paltrow wedding secrets revealed
It was hardly the usual celebrity spread across the pages of Hello! or even a formal announcement in The Times. The duty of confirming that actress Gwyneth Paltrow is now Mrs Chris Martin was left to a small town bureaucrat.
With the couple on honeymoon and publicists and friends remaining silent, their wedding was revealed by the clerk-recorder's office of Santa Barbara County. An official said documents showed the couple had married shortly after obtaining a 90-day licence on Friday.
It follows days of speculation that the Oscar-winning actress and her British rock star boyfriend had finally tied the knot. But beyond the brief statement in California the rest is still largely guesswork. One report said they married in the grounds of the San Ysidro Ranch, 80 miles out of Los Angeles, where screen legends Sir Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh wed. The ranch was also a honeymoon destination for President John F Kennedy and his bride Jackie in 1953.
After the service Martin and Paltrow are said to have spent several hours at a cottage with a log fire and four-poster bed. Martin, 25, asked staff to fill the building with flowers, and the couple ordered a wedding breakfast from room service.
The pair are said to have booked at the last minute and paid £300 for their one-day stay. Since then Paltrow and Martin, who announced last week they are expecting a baby in the summer, are said to have moved on with a honeymoon on Mexico's Baja Peninsula.
Paltrow, 31, who was once engaged to Brad Pitt, began dating the lead singer of Coldplay after the death of her father, film director Bruce Paltrow, last October.
She was given a message of congratulations by former boyfriend Ben Affleck, who failed to make his own trip to the altar with Jennifer Lopez earlier this year.
Affleck told People magazine: "She had a really tough year. And it's so wonderful to see somebody get some happiness." The magazine also reports that no family members attended the wedding, including Paltrow's mother, the actress Blythe Danner.
