Veil of secrecy covers Letourneau nuptials
SEATTLE – Telephone calls with secret instructions. Private e-mails outlining a hush-hush rendezvous. Identity checks and pledges of silence. Security leading up to Friday night’s wedding of Mary Kay Letourneau and her former sixth-grade pupil rivaled that of top-secret government ops.
Letourneau and Vili Fualaau have been in the national spotlight since she was jailed in 1997 for raping Fualaau, now 22. The couple has two children together.
When she got out of prison last August they reunited and pledged their love. Letourneau, 43, has since moved to Normandy Park, a waterfront suburb south of Seattle.
Details of their nuptials have been closely guarded in recent weeks, except for a series of interviews by “Entertainment Tonight” and its sister TV show, “The Insider.” The shows had exclusive rights to coverage of the wedding, but show officials said they did not pay for the festivities.
About 200 guests were collected from a predetermined pickup location Friday evening for a bus ride to the wedding site, the Columbia Winery in Woodinville, about 20 miles northeast of Seattle.
Despite all the secrecy, photographers swarmed a hotel where Letourneau was preparing for the wedding, said Janet Annino, ET’s co-executive producer for the wedding.
“Mary Kay was whisked out of the hotel to this venue under intense security,” she said. “She arrived here with a sheet over her head. She had to lie down in the car coming in to avoid the paparazzi.”
Shortly after 10 p.m., in a wedding tent set up outdoors, Letourneau and Fualaau exchanged vows they had written themselves, Annino said.
Scott Stewart, a lawyer and family friend, presided over the 12-minute ceremony, Annino said.
The bride, who is taking her new husband’s name, wore a long, white empire-style dress handmade in London by Christiana Couture, the producer added.
Fualaau wore a black tuxedo.
Letourneau’s teenage daughter, Mary Claire, one of four children from her earlier marriage, was her maid of honor, Annino said. Also present was her son Steven.
The couple’s two daughters, Audrey, 8, and Alexis Georgia, 7, were selected to be flower girls.
Fualaau’s mother, who raised the couple’s two daughters while Letourneau was in prison, was in attendance; Letourneau’s mother was not, Annino said.