LIz Hurley Is Divorced From Arun Nayar: This Was Her Wedding (Words & Photos)
ELIZABETH Hurley is now divorced from Arun Nayar. Anorak recalls when they married in a event that went on and on and on and on…
ELIZABETH Hurley and Arun Nayar are “MORE IN LOVE THAN EVER”.
LIZ Hurley has worn all manner of dresses in a career that has spanned parties, premieres and personal appearances.
And now she is preparing to wear some more clothes, adding maternity gowns to a CV that already includes dresses with safety pins, white jeans and bikinis.
The Mirror says that Liz plans to have a baby with boyfriend Arun Nayar. And what’s more she and he are to marry.
“I cannot reveal to you the exact date but it is very close,” says Liz in Italian Vanity Fair magazine.
DAY 2
Good news indeed. It is news worthy of any front page. And on reading it our smiles are every bit as wide, if not as brilliant, as those writ large on the faces of Hurley and Nayar.
As Breast Cancer Awareness Month drew to a close, model/actress/mother/swimsuit designer Elizabeth Hurley “flicked a switch to light up Milan’s Piazza Scala, bathing it in pink light,” notes Hello!
Hello! looked on at the pinky glow. And waited for the moment to ask Elizabeth about her wedding day.
“It’s impossible to do everything and I’m behind in most areas, frankly!” says Liz. “My desk is piled high with outstanding work.”
By outstanding, we know full well what Liz means, especially those of us who have seen her films and TV work.
Liz is busy. She hasn’t made any plans about her wedding. “I also need a haircut, a manicure, some exercise and a good night’s sleep,” she finds time to tell us.
Busy does not do Liz justice. But at least Liz and Arun are happier than ever…
DAY 3
LIZ Hurley’s wedding to a simpering Arun Nayer promisezzz…
It truly is hard work turning this sexless romance into something more.
There is nothing to tell. There is nothing to see. Indeed, the Sun tells us that Lizzzz married her Indian beau in a registry office last Friday.
Can there be anything more mundane and less starry than a registry office, that municipal council hall where marriage comes between birth and death?
And this was not Chelsea registry office, Marylebone registry office but Cheltenham register office.
Cheltenham, a place so routine and predictable it is twinned with Cheltenham in the USA. Cheltenham, a place where a visit to the council’s website and a click on the headline “CIVIC PRICE” tosses up the page: “Sorry, but the page you were looking for can’t be found (error 404).”
A look a the registry office’s official website tells us: “The Marriage Room, Reception, and waiting area are housed on the first floor of a County Council building and a lift is available allowing good access for the disabled and elderly. The Marriage Room, which can seat 35 people including the Bride and Groom, has the benefit of a comfort cooling system.”
Ah, for a comfortable cooling system, a thing not to be underrated in early March. But Lizzzz and Arun have married in cool surrounds.
Other than that, facts are thinner than, well, Lizzzz.
A spokeswoman for the Council tells us: “Liz Hurley was married yesterday afternoon, that is all I am allowed to give out.” But what more is there?
Of course, the party is tonight. This is a do held “in the grounds” of Sudeley Castle, the historic property owned by Liz’s close pal, the toothsome Henry Dent-Brocklehurst.
Everyone who is anyone will be there – Sir Elton John, fashion designer Donatella Versace and soap actress Patsy Kensit are believed to be on the invite list.
Liz Hurley’s wedding party promisezzz…
DAY 4
What of Liz Hurley’s wedding? What is it like?
The Mail knows. It has an “insider” at the do.
The paper hears from Rosemary Trollope, mother to Aga Saga writer Joanna Trollope. Rosemary will tell all.
Rosemary is sat in the front pew for the post-registry office church blessing.
Mother-of-one Liz is wearing a white Versace dress as she draws upon her not inconsiderable know-how to walk unaided down the aisle at Sudeley Castle chapel.
The train seems to be made of white feathers. The temptation to goose the bride would have been high. But instead Rosemary just gives the dress a quick fondle and discovers the feathers to be made of rows of chiffon frills.
Then Patsy Kensit steps forward to read a lesson. The former Mrs Liam Gallagher wears a black chiffon ball-gown. “I though she was a very brave girl,” says Rosemary not altogether unkindly.
Kensit, an actress by trade, is to read a lesson from John Chapter 15, Versus 1-18 (“Verily, thou shall sell the photos to Hello!. Thou shall string out the wedding for a 26-page feature. Thou shall wear many dresses. For it is so.”)
All told, Rosemary is glad Kensit is there, what with her being the only famous person she recognises, other than Elton John.
So Rosemary is impelled to talk to “strangers”, or not-yet-good-pals, as we prefer to call them.
She spots a thin woman, “a mere slice of a girl”, wearing an outfit made up of a few silver sequins. There are evening dresses. There are ball gowns. There are silk cocktail suits.
And there is Elizabeth’s mother, Angela Hurley. She’s come in a “pale green, sparkly dress with trailing chiffon skirt”. Looking not unlike a string of asparagus bejewelled with morning dew, the elder Hurley is a woman to be relied up. And then the dress “somehow” gets caught under Rosemary’s feet.
Rosemary’s own choice of outfit is not revealed, but we imagine it to be a pale green, sparkly dress with trailing chiffon skirt. Or failing that, tweed and pearls in no end of combinations.
And so to the marquee. No mere tent this, as white tables circle a dance floor. The canopy is sprinkled with gold stars. Piles of cream-coloured roses are plentiful.
“All preconceptions of a showbizzy element could be dismissed,” says Rosemary. Well, only Patsy Kensit, Elton John and Joanna Trollope’s mum are there…
DAY 5
The Mirror hears the crowds cheer as Liz arrives in Mumbai. “Chai-chai,” Liz’s Indian fan club yells. “New lamps for old,” they cry. “We hate you Jade Goody,” scream others.
And then they are off to the “do after the do”. They will be blessed at a “Haldi”. The Mirror informs us that this ritual involves the happy couple being covered in turmeric, milk and cream. This, it says, will cleanse them – a change from Liz’s usual beauty regime of Estee Lauder products and cotton wool.
And with Liz looking good enough to put in a tandoor oven and bake, it’s off to Jodhpur for more fun and games, this time with Bollywood songs. Arun will ride a white horse. There will be more white horses. And elephants.
And the “sacred fire”, which Liz and Arun will walk around seven times.
It is not known whether Liz will change outfits on each lap, but given that her motif is fashion, we should not rule it out.
DAY 6
IF the wedding is anything to by Liz Hurley and Arun Nayar’s marriage will prove to be enduring.
Indeed, it can’t be too long until Hurley and her Leeds-born lover have a first wedding anniversary to celebrate.
But before those festivities can begin in earnest, Hello! wants to show us how the wedding is progressing.
The wedding party has reached India. And over a 53-page album of “non-stop festivities”, “Bollywood dancing” and “spectacular fireworks”, we will catch up with the party to date.
This is Hurley’s “Monson Wedding”. A wedding guest calls it a “magical fantasy”. But we would not be so cruel. Liz’s love for Arun is so very real. And one day in the future when the party is over, they will be left alone with their love and their magazines.
We join Liz as she arrives in India.
“I was absolutely shattered after the English wedding as I danced till dawn but I was so excited waking up the next day as I knew I’d be spending the next week with all my favourite people.”
Liz is then pictured seated among a group of her people. All are young women. All are dressed in traditional Indian attire. And all are non-Indian, apart from the two women paining henna on Liz’s hands.
On one hand Liz sports an elephant and on the other, a maharajah prince “who bore a striking resemblance to Arun”.
Liz could do little more to show her affection for her husband than if she wrote his name across her knuckles. And no sooner said than done as “under her Chopard engagement ring, she had the word ‘Arun’ delicately applied”.
Arun forgoes the picture of an anchor or Liz as a mermaid coiled around his navel, preferring instead a “romantic Valentine heart inscribed on his hand”.
And another day draws to a close…
DAY 7
DAY two of the latest leg of Liz Hurley’s wedding to Arun Nayar and we are on a magical mystery tour.
Where are we heading to? Are we off to Arun’s native Leeds for a slap up meal of Yorkshire pudding and hand-mushed peas?
Not yet. We should not get ahead of ourselves. It’s day two so it must be a trip to the Nagaur Fort in the desert.
A mere two hours drive by super executive delux bus from Jodhpur, negotiating so many camels, buses, lorries and signs advertising “Overtaking leads to the undertaker”, the party arrives.
“I was simply terrified,” says David Furnish, Elton John’s partner. “But when I got there I was certainly in the mood for a party.”
After so many near death experiences, a celebration of life is well called for.
And the locals are out in force to join the fun. The gates are besieged. The Army stands guard. Guests battle though. And they are rewarded with a ride on camel rickshaws.
And then to a tent. There are 100 “safari-style” tents in all. And each comes with a toilet and shower.
There is a flag attached to each roof. It is a service flag. Guests are invited to raise the red flag should they need anything, like a hotel room, a flight back to the main wedding camp and a lawyer.
Incidentally, Hello! notes that the 12th Century fort never fell to the British Army during the time of empire. Who would have dared suppose that what the bullet and the bayonet could not achieve, the bride and so much magazine money could?
And so the fort is transformed into an “Anglo–Indian pleasure palace”. There’s a military band. A line of flaming torches. There are carpets of bright red peppers.
For the umpteenth time, the band strike up for Here Comes The Bride, and Liz and Arun arrive. There’s a meal of curry and, in clear tribute to Arun’s roots, spiced peas.
A curtain is raised. And Liz is leading a dance troupe of some of her female friends, including Trinny ‘The Tranny’ Woodall, Janet ‘Street’-Porter, the ubiquitous Tania Bryer and more.
“We were all gibbering with nerves,” says Liz. “I was convinced I’d forgot it, or fall off the stage or something.”
But the dance goes on. The men in the audience unleash “peacock squawks”. “Even the Indian women [out of shot]…agreed that it was a spectacular Indian debut performance.”
Then Arun joins the dancing, dressed in a silver and white tunic, silvery-white shoes and on one foot a blue sock of a type seen in more prosaic clothes shops. Elizabeth swoons into his arms. (Did she see the sock?)
“I danced until four in the morning and fell asleep in my tent in full make-up and jewellery,” says Liz, just an ordinary girl at heart…
DAY 8
DAY three and Liz Hurley and Arun are mixing with so many fire-eaters, dancers and musicians.
As a wedding, this has much in common with the kind of ceremony that marks the start of global sporting events. And had Liz only thought of it she’d arrive hanging from a balloon while ten thousand local schoolchildren spell out her name in flash cards.
The ceremony is all. “During an Indian wedding, all events are leading up to the ceremony,” she tells us. Arun tells us how happy his family is that Liz “is taking the ceremony so seriously”.
Liz is drinking lime juice and water with her friends. Arun is getting ready for his barat ceremony, what Hello! tells us is the equivalent of a Western stag party.
But Arun is not off to a former Communist Bloc city to feel up discount prostitutes, go near-blind on the local brew and fall into a fountain. He is sat on a horse and clapping his hands. The band plays on. And on. Leonard Lauder puts his fingers in his ears.
Then at 7pm the hotel’s generator blows. The hotel is plunged into darkness. Liz continues to get ready, dressing by the reflected light of her jewels.
Ready at last, Liz makes her way to the wedding room. She stands on a dais, decorated with flowers, sweets, honey and bananas.
Resisting the urge to tuck in, Liz waits. Arun arrives.
There is much blessing and petals are tossed. The couple walks seven times around a fire. Arun’s outfit nearly catches light. Hello! notes guests wiping away tears.
There are fireworks. And then it is over.
And we move onto the next leg. Leeds here we come…
DAY 9
WE’VE reached the mid-way point in the Liz Hurley wedding to Arun Nayer.
And before all of India can dance and sing and the party decamps from India for the next leg in Arun’s hometown of Leeds, we catch up with events to date.
It is not every magazine that can invite its readers to experience a showbiz wedding as it actually occurs, but Hello! did not pay a fortune for something ordinary.
So journey with us to what Hello! is calling “The wedding of the year” and, very possibly, the wedding of next year.
We catch up with Hurley and her lover at Sudely Castle. This is “fairytale English style” do and we expect lots of ugly sisters, wicked stepparents and dwarves.
But first we get Liz’s dress. It is white. It is a “chiffon dream” with a silk tulle bodice. It has been designed by Hurley’s showbiz pal Donatella Versace.
The train is so much white fabric gathered into bunches. It looks like feathers. And, as Anorak has noted, guests resisted the temptation to goose the bride.
And such guests. There’s Elton John and his partner David Furnish. Cobbler Patrick Cox. Clothes designer Tom Ford. Bra wearer Eva Herzigova. And Liz’s son Damian trussed up in a pair of creamy-white plus fours and a matching satin-trimmed jacket that suggest a young man already deeply secure in his masculinity.
In all there are ten children dressed like Damien. And we wish them good mental health in the future.
And there are more names: Elle Macpherson (model), Pavlos of Greece (self-style Prince), Flavio Briatore (shop owner) and Trinny ‘the Tranny’ Woodall (dresser).
But where is Hugh Grant? Is he late? “We decided not to invite either Hugh or Arun’s ex-wife Valentina,” says Liz. “We adore our exes but we thought it would make all four of us feel a bit sad.”
And then the strains of Gloria break out. Give me a G! L! O!… But this is no typical wedding, and this is Vivaldi’s Gloria, a thing of splendour.
Those within the chapel sigh as Liz “gazed lovingly into Arun’s eyes”. Those unable to be seated within the chapel, look on from the cheap seats as the event is relayed to TVs plugged in before them.
Tears well in Liz; eyes. The actress struggles with her lines. Finally, she manages to control herself and speak the vows. And then more tears “well up in her beautiful green-blue eyes and trickle down her face”. The designer Valentino says the tears are “like seeing an exquisite flower blossom”.
Hello! sees that many of the guests are also crying.
Then to the sounds of the choir singing the Wedding March, guests retire for a plate of lobster cocktail, roast chicken and bread and butter pudding.
There are photographs in the library. Elton John sings. Arun and Liz dance. A video in the Bollywood style plays on a screen. It is the tale of Arun and Liz’s romance.
And then the Liz changes her dress and prepares to it all again…
DAY 10
HAVING taken in England, India and Elton John’s 60th birthday in New York, the wedding of Liz Hurley and Arun Nayar should be approaching the groom’s native Leeds any day now.
There will not be a dry eye left on planet Earth once the wedding of the year and, given time, the wedding of the decade finishes with a bang and right on schedule for Liz and Arun’s diamond jubilee (sponsored by Chopard).
The Mail spots one man’s wet eyes. He’s Vinod Nayar, father of the groom. As the Mail writes, “tears streamed from his red-rimmed eyes” as his boy married La Hurley.
But these were not only tears of joy. While Arun and Liz gazed up towards the skies illuminated with fireworks and the flashguns of Hello! magazine’s photographers, Vinod was “sat dejectedly in his hotelroom armchair”. He “stared vacantly at a flickering television screen”. His face was “crumpled with pain”.
Behind the smiles and the laughter “the most talked-about wedding of the year was marred by unpleasant feuding from the outset and culminated in disgraceful scenes with ramifications that will last for years”.
The Mail talks of “perceived snubs, claims, counterclaims and boycott threats”. And there goes Vinod now, being ejected form his own son’s wedding.
For shame!
Says Vinod: “I believe it was expressly done on Elizabeth’s orders. Maybe they didn’t really want my side of the family there. They didn’t even have the good manners to invite my 87-year-old mother.”
And there is more. Anorak usually shies away from long quotes, but we give Vinod his dues. He has much to say. He tells us:
“I once thought Liz was a lovely, unspoiled woman, but now I see that she is a very hard person. It was important for her to get celebrity faces there. That’s what the Hello! deal was about. She was fulfilling her contractual obligation.
“I knew she was very ambitious, but I never realised just how desperate she is for fame and attention.
“My wife and I were publicly humiliated and treated like social outcasts for the sake of a £2 million magazine deal. We were pushed into the background like poor relations.”
Who among us would shun their own aged grandmother for a mere couple of million pounds and the chance to be feted and swooned over in glossy print? For shame!
Vinod goes on: “But the most offensive and hurtful thing was to be denied, in the presence of all those people, the opportunity to accept her formally into the family, as is the Indian custom. This is not the behaviour of a woman with integrity and honour.”
And: “My heart is heavy with pain. I don’t know how she can blithely state in interviews that she gets on well with Arun’s Indian family after what she did. They should both be ashamed of themselves.”
Perhaps there is room to make the peace. After all, Vinod may share more with Liz than he imagines. Is his private life not now matter of public record? Has he not gone to the newspapers with his story?
Vinod tells us how Joanna, his second wife, Arun’s step-mother, was not made to feel welcome at the wedding.
Joanne looks at her invitation and notes: “It included advice to bring bacterial wipes and not to talk to beggars. We found it quite offensive. We treated her more kindly when she attended our wedding three years ago.”
To put this in perspective, Vinod tells us: “An insult to my wife is an insult to me – remember that Prince Charles didn’t go to one wedding because the people wouldn’t invite Camilla.”
As we say, Liz and Vinod should get on famously…
Ends. Divorce. (Photos NSFW)
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Posted: 16th, June 2011 | In: Celebrities Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
