Over the next 20 minutes the Rev. Susan Brown, 42, the United Kingdom's first female minister in charge of a cathedral, guided the couple through the Church of Scotland's nine-part wedding sequence. "They were very good on their lines," says Guy's father, John, 72. "They read them out very clearly and precisely. It was lovely."

And true to the high priestess of the chameleonic code, quite unpredictable. Whereas her 1985 Malibu wedding to Penn, which led to divorce after four years, was a high-octane event packed with 220 guests (plus news helicopters clattering overhead), Madonna chose this time to hermetically seal herself around a tight coterie of friends and relatives. She and Ritchie, the brash British director of the forthcoming Snatch and 1998's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, had met more than two years ago during lunch at Sting and wife Trudie Styler's country home. If Penn was Madonna's temperamental match and boyfriend Carlos Leon, father of Lourdes, her physical ideal, Ritchie -- who reportedly calls his new wife "Madge" in private -- is a man who holds his own against his high-powered bride. "He's really stubborn, and so am I," Madonna told Britain's Daily Mail. "I want someone who is opinionated and strong." The English-born director also bears the scars of a broken home, his parents having split up when he was 5, the same age at which Madonna lost her 30-year-old mother, Madonna, to breast cancer.

The couple's intimacy was on display as they stood before Skibo's bay window of century-old stained-glass panels, intoning the vows they had helped write. After the pair exchanged unmatched wedding rings -- hers a simple platinum band with several small diamonds -- they shared what one guest called a "pretty juicy" kiss, then descended the stairs to loud cheers. "It was obvious," said Reverend Brown, who accompanied them to the plush drawing room where the newlyweds signed the marriage schedule in black ink with a fountain pen. "They were very happy."