Italian society wedding is Blairs’ freebie of the year
WHEN a former Prime Minister and his wife regularly enjoy your generous hospitality, the least they can do is come to your son’s wedding. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Tony and Cherie Blair were, I can reveal, happy to travel to Italy to be honoured guests at the wedding of Carlo Carello, whose father, Massimo, is one of Italy’s most powerful industrialists.
‘The Blairs and the Carellos have become good friends,’ says a mutual acquaintance. ‘The Carellos naturally gravitate to people of influence.’ And the Blairs, he might have added, gravitate towards money. Tony and Cherie are said to have arrived aboard a private jet, with police protection officers in tow, for the marriage of private members’ club owner Carlo, 30, to Jimmy Choo shoes PR Alexandra Edwards, 27.
The three-day wedding party for 230 of the couple’s society pals made Pippa Middleton’s nuptials in a Berkshire marquee look positively austere, with the ceremony held at Castello di Racconigi, a palace south of Turin.
Old Harrovian Carlo, who once courted Princess Beatrice, was granted special access to the palace, making him and Alex the first couple to wed there since 1930.
Tony and Cherie have been guests several times at the Carellos’ luxurious villa on the ‘paradise island’ of Lipari, off the coast of Sicily.
They have also stayed at the spectacular £10 million mansion on a hill overlooking Turin owned by Massimo, former head of car giant Fiat in the UK, and his glamorous wife, Sara.
The Carellos used to split their time between Italy and a house in Chelsea’s Sloane Square.
They met Blair when the then Prime Minister and his family were enjoying the hospitality of Sir Cliff Richard at the singer’s home in Barbados in 2004. Four years later, Sara became a trustee of the Cherie Blair Foundation For Women. Best man at the wedding was Sam Sangster, son of colourful horse owner the late Robert Sangster, who won the Derby twice and the Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe three times. Although the heavens opened during the outdoor wedding party, the rain couldn’t dampen the spirits of the Blairs, who joined their hosts for a special lunch the next day.