SOME people are content to say it with flowers. The Brazilian footballer Ronaldo gave his fiancée a £500,000 Valentine’s Day party for her and 250 of their “closest” friends yesterday.
Michael Schumacher, the seven-times Formula 1 champion, and Gilberto Gil, the Brazilian Culture and Arts Minister and acclaimed jazz musician, were among the guests, and the DJ Fatboy Slim flew in from London to perform during the party.
The lavish celebration at a castle in Chantilly, just north of Paris, was billed as a St Valentine’s Day wedding but under French law Ronaldo and his fiancée, the Brazilian model Daniella Cicarelli, found they were unable to become man and wife.
Ronaldo has been divorced from Milene Domingues, with whom he still shares a luxury home in Madrid, for less than one year, and Senhora Cicarelli is still legally maried to a businessman from Brazil.
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A request by Ronaldo, 28, for an annulment of his marriage so that he could remarry in church was turned down by the Vatican. Ms Cicarelli, 24, reportedly smashed her mobile telephone when she was told that the local Chantilly council would not permit a wedding since the couple had failed to give the required three months’ notice to announce the banns.
“This isn’t Las Vegas,” a council spokesman was quoted as saying. “No paperwork has been deposited with the town hall. The first we knew of their wedding was through the newspapers. They can have an engagement party.”
In spite of this, the Real Madrid footballer had set his heart on a Valentine’s Day wedding — and galacticos, as the footballers of Real Madrid are known, are not used to taking no for an answer. The party “represents the love we feel for one another”, he said.
“Ronaldo and Daniella wanted to do something special on Valentine’s Day,” David Espinar, the player’s spokesman, said. “They will consider it as their wedding day.”
The wedding outfits for the £500,000 ceremony were commissioned from the Italian designer Valentino. Private jets were chartered to fly relatives from Brazil for the event.
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Chantilly (population 5,000) was swarming with paparazzi hours before the ceremony was due to begin at 8.30pm. A fleet of 63 Audi saloon cars ferried guests from the airport to the castle. Brazilian newspapers reported that Hola! magazine had bought the exclusive rights to the wedding photographs for €400,000 (about £275,000).
Paris, although a romantic destination for many, has not always been associated with happy memories for Ronaldo.In 1998 he played one of his worst games when France beat Brazil 3-0 in the World Cup final.