Singer Andrea Bocelli became the focus of widespread envy among Italian socialites on Thursday when it emerged that he has an invitation to attend the wedding of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
At present he is the only Italian confirmed as being on the guest list for the country's most glamorous wedding of the year - a three-day event scheduled to be hosted in a lakeside castle near Rome.
The Tuscan performer's staff confirmed that he has been invited to the bash but aides could not confirm reports that he will sing for the couple.
According to some sources, the only other Italian who stands a chance of going to the Odescalchi castle on Lake Bracciano will be Hollywood costume and set designer Dante Ferretti.
Giorgio Armani, who is known to have designed Holmes' wedding gown and Cruise's suit, may be there but this is not 100% certain. However, it seems likely because he has reportedly been given the job of overseeing the entire event.
About 250 guests are expected at Bracciano and practically all of them will be Americans, sources say. Thirty limousines have already been booked by the Cruise-Holmes couple to ship their VIP guests to and from their wedding location.
The inaccessibility of the wedding to anyone outside the Hollywood hunk's privileged close circle is proving frustrating to some in Rome's highest social circles.
Several of the aristocratic female friends of Princess Odescalchi, owner of the castle location, apparently went to her and asked to work for free as hostesses at the wedding.
"Many of us would do anything to stand next to Tom Cruise," admitted one of them, going on to say that the actor had been rather "rude" to keep local people out of things. The princess's response to the requests of her friends was: "No thank you I don't even know if I'm going to be invited myself".
Meanwhile, local priest Monsignor Nicola Fiorentini has confirmed that there will be no Catholic wedding ceremony at the castle, which boasts its own private chapel. Press reports earlier this week said there would be a Catholic wedding and a marriage ritual carried out by an official of the Scientology sect to which Cruise belongs.
"There will be no Catholic wedding because Tom Cruise is a divorcee," the priest said flatly.
