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Sir Paul McCartney marries Nancy Shevell at Marylebone register office

The former Beatle Paul McCartney has married American heiress Nancy Shevell at Marylebone register office in London.



Sir Paul with his fiancée, Nancy Shevell Photo: GETTY

3:29PM BST 09 Oct 2011

The couple waved to crowds packed behind security barries after they made the short drive from Sir Paul's north London home to the venue. Guests seen arriving for the ceremony included fellow Beatle Ringo Starr. The register office is the same venue where Sir Paul McCartney married his first wife Linda 42 years ago.

The date the couple have chosen is particularly poignant because it would have been John Lennon's 71st birthday. Just 30 guests were expected to attend the civil ceremony in central London. Sir Paul married the then Linda Eastman there on March 12 1969. This will be Sir Paul's third marriage and Miss Shevell's second.

The wedding reception is, according to reports, being held in the back garden of Sir Paul's house in St John's Wood, close to Abbey Road studios where the Beatles recorded most of their songs. A small marquee has been erected in the garden and a further canopy outside the rear entrance of the house to allow guests a degree of privacy on arrival.

The low-key wedding is in stark contrast to Sir Paul's second marriage to Heather Mills, a former glamour model whom he divorced amid bitter acrimony in 2008. A court ordered the former Beatle to pay Miss Mills almost £25 million in compensation for a marriage which had lasted just four years before the couple split.

Sir Paul, 69, married Miss Mills in an altogether more lavish affair at Castle Leslie in Ireland in 2002 in front of several hundred guests. At the time, his family had expressed their concern that he was rushing into marriage with a woman he had first met in 1999, a year after the death of Linda McCartney, who had died from breast cancer.

Miss Mills, who had part of one leg amuptated after she was knocked over by a police motorbike in 1993, was villified by the media and variously called a 'gold digger'- an allegation she strongly denied - or else referred to as Lady Mucca, a label she fiercely objected to.

This time around, the marriage to Miss Shevell, is being warmly welcomed. Sir Paul's daughter Stella McCartney, who had made no secret of her dislike for Miss Mills, is understood to have designed the dress. Miss Shevell, 51, is independently wealthy, being heir to a haulage firm run by her father which is valued at £250 million. Although she is 18 years younger than Sir Paul, the age gap is less than the quarter of a century which separated Sir Paul from Miss Mills.

It was reported that Sir Paul's younger brother Mike will be best man at today's wedding with his daughter Beatrice, seven, from his marriage to Miss Mills acting as the sole bridesmaid. According to the Daily Mirror, Stella McCartney has played a role not only with the dress but also putting together the dinner menu. Sir Paul is a long-standing vegetarian and the meal being served to guests is strictly meat-free and largely organic. A source, described as close to the star, told the newspaper:

"the wedding is in keeping with the way Paul and Nancy have conducted their entire relationship - low-key, understated and fuelled by goodwill. neither of them wanted a huge fuss ,ade and the main priority, for both, was family." On Friday night, Sir Paul and Miss Shevell appeared in public together for a meal at Cecconi's restaurant in Mayfair, where they were joined by relatives of the American bride-to-be.

Miss Shevell clung on to Sir Paul's arm and in doing so showed off a large, diamond engagement ring. It is not clear which of her close family were at the dinner. Miss Shevell's son Arlen Blakeman, a university undergraudate, flew in from the US on Friday, according to an update yesterday on his Facebook page, and is due to return home on Monday.

Miss Shevell's cousin is Barbara Walters, 82, the veteran US broadcaster, who took to the social network site twitter on Friday to declare: "going away for a big weekend. Will tell you more when I get back." In doing so she triggered the intense speculation that the wedding will be today, a suggestion backed up by the flurry of activity at Sir Paul's home.