Italian town awaits ‘wedding of the year’

updated 5:44 p.m. ET Nov. 17, 2006

BRACCIANO, Italy - This lakeside town was busy Friday sprucing up its medieval facade with a touch of Hollywood flair on the eve of Tom Cruise’s wedding to Katie Holmes, naming restaurant menus after the actors’ most famous movies and filling shop windows with well-wishing messages.

Streets were cleaned, the grass cut and weeds pulled. Road signs outside Bracciano warned drivers that the center of town would be closed to traffic all of Saturday to free the area around the 15th-century Odescalchi Castle — the likely venue for the celebrity wedding.

By early afternoon, town workers began setting up barriers on the street leading to one of the castle’s entrances. The historic town’s narrow streets teemed with journalists and camera crews, while locals made their own preparations.

“We are all participating a little in this wedding,” said Simona Palazzini, a restaurant owner in the square next to the castle. “And we are quite happy to do so.”

At the Il Ristorantino dining spot Palazzini offered a “Top Gun” menu that included fettuccine with seafood called “Mission Impossible” and apple pie with cream and hot chocolate named after Suri, the couple’s daughter. At the nearby Trattoria del Castello, guests could order a “Tom e Kat” — a basket of parmesan cheese with truffles and mushrooms.

“Wishing you love and happiness,” read one well-wishing sign written in English and taped to the window of a coffee shop.

“Congratulations Tom and Katie,” said a sticker on the window of a clothing store, whose two other windows sported a wedding dress with a photograph of the couple, and a “Top Gun” theme with aviation outfits and jackets, and a poster of Cruise as Maverick, the pilot he played in the movie.

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Nearby, a store had an arch of white balloons over its doorway, except for one red one shaped like a heart. A picture of the couple and a postcard of Bracciano hung from the red balloon.

“This is good for the town. It’s a beautiful thing that will make Bracciano known to the whole world,” said Iolanda Barbarani, who owns a hardware store.

Lidia Sabbatini, who owns a flower shop, said residents were besides themselves with excitement.

“Everybody is so enthusiastic. ... it’s not an everyday thing to have a Hollywood star as a guest,” Sabbatini said. “That’s all anyone is talking about. Wherever you go, they’re talking about it. People aren’t even taking the time to buy bread!”

On Friday evening, Cruise and Holmes left the Hassler hotel where they have been staying in Rome to take part in a reception at a villa on a hill overlooking the Italian capital.

On Thursday, Bracciano Mayor Patrizia Riccioni said the celebrity couple would likely wed Saturday in a Scientology ceremony at the castle, 43 kilometers (27 miles) north of Rome.

While she stopped short of confirming the actual date of the wedding, the town’s Web site had a picture of Cruise and Holmes under the headline, “The wedding of the year in Bracciano, Saturday, 18 November 2006.”

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