George Clooney Marries In Venice Ceremony

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George Clooney has tied the knot with British-Lebanese lawyer Amal Alamuddin in Venice, a representative for the actor has confirmed.

The wedding was originally thought to have been taking place on Monday.

Clooney had made a dramatic entrance on Saturday evening at a Venice palace on the city's Grand Canal, arriving on a motor launch flanked by around 20 other boats carrying photographers, local police and cheering onlookers.

Even the police escorting the actor were snapping photos as the sun set, a drone sent up by paparazzi hovered overhead and a passing water bus packed with tourists leaned dangerously into the water as passengers rushed over to one side to get a glimpse of the dinner-jacketed star.

Clooney was the last of a series of celebrity guests to arrive at Palazzo Papadopoli by boat, including Vogue editor Anna Wintour, model Cindy Crawford, actor Bill Murray, singer Bono and Matt Damon, who hopped off their water taxis under a tented entrance to the 16th century palazzo, which boasts vast reception rooms and frescoes by Italian artist Tiepolo.

As Alamuddin awaited him at the palazzo, which is now a seven-star hotel, Clooney again used a local launch called Amore, the same he and Alamuddin rode in on Friday as they entered Venice, bound for the luxury Cipriani hotel.

Wedding festivities for Clooney, 53, and Alamuddin, 36, started on Friday with Clooney taking six male friends to a local restaurant, Da Ivo, where they ate fresh crab, white truffle pasta and mushroom risotto under the gaze of photographers parked outside the restaurant on a wooden barge.

Clooney has not shied away from publicity during the festivities, joking on Friday with journalists staking him out as he ate in the garden of the Cipriani and sending one reporter a bottle of his own brand tequila.

Venetians, who are accustomed to seeing celebrities flock in for the city's annual film festival, have warmed to Clooney, although local gondoliers slammed the flotilla of photographers following the couple down the Grand Canal on Friday for causing a "tsunami" of bow waves which nearly toppled tourists into the murky waters.

Local media likened Alamudddin to a cross between Audrey Hepburn and Jaqueline Kennedy for her elegant outfits, while Tala, Alamuddin’s sister, was singled out for her beauty and dubbed the Pippa Middleton of the wedding.

Guests are reportedly set to follow up with a dinner on Sunday at an old brick granary building which is part of the Cipriani hotel complex at the tip of Venice’s Giudecca island, directly across the lagoon from St Marks Square.