 |
Several months ago, she began wearing the vintage engagement ring – a 1910 Tiffany and Co. piece from jeweler Neil Lane's private collection – that James gave her on her left index finger. And the invitations she sent out about two months ago for the day's bash did not mention the M-word. As she said about the whole "Hallmark thing" in March, "People were trying to put me on their schedule. I've got my own schedule."
One she kept closely guarded until men in kilts playing bagpipes lured guests from a tent to the wooded grove around 8 p.m. The invitations they had received asked them to board shuttle buses in Santa Barbara to an unspecified location at about 5 p.m.
Though most had heard rumors a wedding might take place, only a few there knew for sure. Among them: Bullock's father, John, 70, a vocal coach from Arlington, and Gesine, 35, who runs a bakery out of Montpelier, Vt., and made the four-tier wedding cake topped with a bride and groom on a bicycle. Almost everyone else spent the first two hours sitting at burlap- and lace-covered tables under the tent or poolside by a Colonial-style manor, nibbling on hors d'oeuvres and scratching their heads.
Says one guest: "To the last minute everyone was like, 'Is she getting married? Is she not getting married? Is she getting married? Is she not getting married?' "
