NEW YORK (AFP-EJP)---Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz, the ex-wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, married her Moroccan-born lover at New York's glitzy Rainbow Room on Sunday, in a ceremony attended by around 150 guests, mostly Europeans, who crossed the Atlantic for the occasion.
Ciganer-Albeniz, 50, and third husband Richard Attias, a 48-year-old multi-millionaire Jewish Moroccan-born events organizer, arrived for the nuptials in a black limousine with tinted windows pursued by a pack of paparazzi, and sped into an underground garage.
Guests arrived for the black tie event dressed in elegant cocktail dresses, fur coats, with glittery handbags or gold clutches, before making their way up to the 65th-floor Rainbow Room, one of the best-known venues in New York.
Contrary to what previous reports said, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel was not present at the wedding as a couple witness. "Mister Wiesel is currently traveling abroad," his assistant told EJP.
The wedding came just over a month after Sarkozy wed former model and singer Carla Bruni and barely five months after the presidential couple announced their divorce.
After the ceremony, guests who left early were tight lipped about the celebrations, declining to even confirm that the couple had tied the knot, let alone to reveal what the bride was wearing.
Singers from the Harlem Gospel Choir who performed at the ceremony said only that it had gone off smoothly, while a private security official declined to offer any details, confirming only that the wedding had happened.
The ceremony itself was followed by cocktails and dinner at the Rainbow Room, a historic venue described by New York Magazine as "one place true New Yorkers expect never to visit" and catering for "easy-to-impress tourists."
Part of the Art Deco Rockefeller Center dating from the 1930s, it features chandeliers, a revolving dance floor and views stretching across Manhattan.
Secrecy
Details surrounding the wedding had been shrouded in secrecy. Rumors had been floating around that the couple would hold a Jewish ceremony.
The celebrations kicked off on Friday with a party at Attias's Connecticut home in the upmarket town of Greenwich. On Saturday, the guests were treated to dinner at a 1920s steakhouse just off Broadway.
They later took in the ABBA-themed Broadway show "Mamma Mia!"
According to reports, guests were 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 her marriage to Sarkozy.
Rumors had been circulating for weeks that Ciganer-Albeniz was to marry Attias, 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.
The couple's wedding list was also published on the website of upmarket Paris department store Le Bon Marche.
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.
Sunday's marriage was 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.
