Wedding bells for Kate

Actress Kate Beckinsale is to marry her film director partner Len Wiseman next month, after a 10-month romance.

A ceremony is planned in Los Angeles in early May after a holiday in Hawaii, where Beckinsale spent time filming the £100 million epic Pearl Harbor.

The wedding will be held close to the Los Angeles home the couple share.

Kate's four-year-old daughter Lily, from her previous relationship with Welsh actor Michael Sheen, is believed to have chosen her dress. Lily will also play a key role in the ceremony - throwing rose petals down the aisle before the bride.

The guest list includes 30-year-old Beckinsale's actress mother Judy Loe and her step-father Roy Battersby, a film director. Her half-sister Samantha is also due to attend.

Special mention is expected to be made of Kate's late father, Porridge actor Richard Beckinsale. He died of a heart attack in 1979 aged 32.

The couple intended to marry last year but Sony Pictures bosses refused to give them sufficient time off from promoting vampire film Underworld.

Beckinsale's relationship with Wiseman, 29, began on the the set of Underworld, which he was directing. Her co-star was Sheen, 34, who she had been with for nine years.

But their relationship crumbled once she fell for Wiseman, who she has described as her soulmate. Beckinsale - often voted the most beautiful woman in the world in magazine polls - left Sheen last April, insisting nobody else was involved.

But she and Wiseman were engaged within two months and the relationship quickly blossomed into one of the most openly passionate pairings.

Beckinsale was recently forced to admit: "People think all Len and I do is kiss in parks and public places. But we do the shopping too, we have to stop for breath now and again."