Inside George Clooney's Venice wedding

Ahead of George Clooney's wedding this weekend, Anne Hanley, our Venice expert, takes a look at preparations in the hotel where guests are staying - and considers how the celebrations may play out.
Venetians are blasé about celebrity. It may be because swarms of A-listers mob the town each September for the film festival, or because film sets are common obstacles for locals in the narrow alleys. But if, as the rumour mill has it, the Grand Canal is closed off this weekend to let George Clooney and his bride Amal Alamuddin process down the waterway on a launch accompanied by a flotilla of gondolas, even Venetians may be impressed.
“We pass celebrities in the streets here without batting an eyelid, but if they want to be noticed, that would certainly do it,” said one resident.
Clooney briefly mentioned the upcoming nuptuals at an event in Florencesome weeks ago; but though the location – Venice – was confirmed, no further details were given – since then speculation has gone into overdrive.
Indeed, the five-star Belmond Cipriani on Giudecca – a plush island hideaway in which discretion is de rigueur – has been so forthcoming with wedding details that Clooney-watchers are suspicious. Granted, this is where George holed up during eight film fests over the past 15 years, becoming so much a member of the hotel family that he puts in time behind the bar mixing cocktails.
The Jolie-Pitts are thought to have reserved a suite there, along with Cate Blanchett, U2’s Bono and Cindy Crawford with her husband Rande Gerber, who’s expected to act as Clooney’s best man. But whether the whole wedding party – including, as the Cipriani says, the happy couple – will be staying in its entirely booked-out 44 rooms and 41 suites (with rates ranging from £575 to eye watering four-digit figures) remains to be seen.
Accessed mainly by private shuttle from St Mark’s (few guests bother with the rear pedestrian entrance) and set in acres of landscaped gardens containing one of central Venice’s very rare hotel pools, the Cipriani has an elegantly converted 19th-century Granary where much of the shindig will be staged, the hotel’s PR machine says.
But the Gabbiano bar and newly opened Adam Tihany-designed Oro Restaurant – under the talented direction of chef Davide Bisetto – will also come into play: fine weather forecast for the weekend would allow guests to spill out on to the utterly dreamy lagoon-side tables in the garden. (There’s a good view of this area from the launch that ferries guests to the St Regis hotel on the island of San Clemente.)
The Cipriani says that they expect the couple to stay in one of their suites – possibly the exclusive Palladio Suite (£6,365 per night), with its private garden, hot tub and boat jetty, which would make a fine bridal nook.
But canny wedding-watchers are putting their money on the ceremony taking place at the tight-lipped 24-room seven-star Aman Canal Grande, which is also fully booked this weekend.
If the Clooneys decide to decamp to the Aman in an attempt to throw off the paparazzi, the £3,130-a-night Alcova Tiepolo suite seems a likely choice: a cascade of decorative stucco surrounds the head of a bed with a fresco by 18th-century Venetian maestro Gianbattista Tiepolo on the ceiling above; original chinoiserie fabrics adorn the walls in the living room. There’s space in the hotel’s two gorgeous, high-walled gardens for aperitivi and dining, and a kitchen producing Asian cuisine which may turn its hand to Middle Eastern dishes for the Lebanese side of the bride’s family.
And the wedding itself? Giorgio Armani has announced that he is responsible for the groom’s outfit. Alamuddin was giving little away when she was snapped in Milan airport earlier this week with a Stella McCartney suitbag slung over her shoulder and clutching a label-less bandbox which may have contained The Dress. She was, however, spotted in London recently emerging from the HQ of Alexander McQueen, where designer Sarah Burton produced the Duchess of Cambridge’s lacy wedding number.

Local press has tipped Walter Veltroni, a close Clooney friend and former mayor of Rome, to officiate at the ceremony itself… wherever and whenever that may be. In theory, the couple will have to drop by the Rialto-facing Palazzo Cavalli - city hall’s wedding venue - to do the required paperwork. While international media expect the match to be made official on Saturday, local press are predicting a post-party appointment on Monday, September 29. Paparazzi aspiring to immortalise the moment will have to have their wits about them: when Woody Allen married Soon-Yi Previn here in 1997 – the last big-name wedding in the lagoon city – they were spirited in and out of a side entrance before anyone noticed they were there.