Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney marries Jewish New Yorker Nancy Shevell in London; couple receive blessing at synagogue.
By REUTERSMcCartney Wedding 311(photo credit: Reuters)
LONDON- Former Beatle Paul McCartney wed American heiress Nancy Shevell in London on Sunday, serenading her with a song written in her honor.The couple went to a local synagogue on Saturday where Shevell, who is from a prominent New York Jewish-American family, received a blessing, before dining at a floating Chinese restaurant with family and friends.RELATED:With a little help from some friendsMcCartney wed Shevell in a civil ceremony at London's Marylebone Register Office before 30 invited guests, ahead of a reception in his back garden in north London.The 69-year-old singer-songwriter, whose success in writing some of the world's most enduring pop classics with the Beatles has helped him to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, married for the third time, while for his bride-to-be it is her second marriage.He and Shevell, 51, posted wedding banns last month in the same place where McCartney married his late first wife Linda in 1969, at the height of the Beatles' fame. Linda died of breast cancer in 1998. His second marriage, to former model Heather Mills, ended in acrimonious divorce in 2008.
A fridge filled with champagne was delivered on Saturday to the house in the upmarket London neighborhood of St John's Wood -- within a stone's throw of the Abbey Road studio where the Beatles recorded most of their albums.McCartney's spokesman declined comment on Saturday, but McCartney himself briefly spoke to reporters outside his home, saying: "Hi guys, thanks for coming out. We're looking forward to it."Asked if he was nervous about the big day, McCartney laughed and said: "Don't be silly, now. Of course not," according to British newspaper the Sunday Mirror.The choice of wedding date seemed especially poignant as Sunday would have been the 71st birthday of John Lennon, McCartney's songwriting partner, who was gunned down in New York in 1980.
As well as the new song, he plans to sing "Let it Be", which he sang to Shevell on one of their first holidays together three years ago, and then her favorite, "Let Me Roll It", according to the Sunday Mirror.McCartney's fashion-designer daughter Stella made Shevell's dress and helped create the three-course organic vegetarian menu, the paper reported.McCartney has a son, two daughters and a stepdaughter from his marriage to Linda, and a daughter from his marriage to Mills.
