English vow...

...Indian wow

The Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire and (below) the Umaid Bhavan Palace in Jodhpur, where the wedding ceremonies will be held

London, March 2: Clever businesswoman that she is, Elizabeth Hurley is writing off the cost of her £1 million wedding tomorrow to Arun Nayar apparently by agreeing to an exclusive photograph deal, worth £1 million, with Hello! magazine.

Although Indian astrologers are busy assessing how well the two 41-year-olds are matched, Hurley cannot be overly superstitious for she clearly does not subscribe to what is known in celebrity circles as “the curse of Hello!”.

Based on some experience, it has been put about that couples who parade their togetherness in the glossy magazine split up.

The pictures of the wedding ceremonies should be stunning, though, not least for the settings.

Indian guests will be charmed by the rolling Cotswold countryside in Gloucestershire, where Sudeley Castle, as romantic a film location as it is possible to find in England, is located.

The western guests — among them David Beckham, Elton John, Kate Winslet, Kate Moss, Elle Macpherson and Donatella Versace who has designed Hurley’s wedding outfit — may have jetted from party to party across the world but nothing in their experience will have prepared them for the jaw-dropping splendour of Umaid Bhavan Palace and Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur where the Indian celebrations are planned.

Elizabeth Hurley: D-Day deal

Gaj Singh II, the erstwhile maharaja of Jodhpur, has a management deal with the Taj hotel group. Similarly, Henry Dent-Brocklehurst, heir to Sudeley Castle and one of Hurley’s most loyal friends, also has to finance its upkeep by opening the historic property and its beautiful gardens to visitors in summer and renting it out for weddings and film shoots.

Bollywood shoots would be most welcome, a spokeswoman for the castle authorities told The Telegraph.

“Sudeley has been used for minor TV appearances, but no notable films or TV,” she said. “The location is available as a film venue, although it would have to work around the opening times and the corporate team would be delighted to host any style of wedding or event.”

Tomorrow’s wedding vows will be exchanged at 6.30 pm in St Mary’s Church in the castle grounds where a giant white marquee has been erected for the guests.

With royal connections spanning a thousand years, Sudeley has played an important role in England’s turbulent past.

The spokeswoman pointed out: “Sudeley was once the magnificent palace of Queen Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s last and surviving wife, who is buried in the castle church. Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey and Elizabeth I stayed at Sudeley Castle. Charles I resided here while his nephew Prince Rupert established Sudeley as his garrison headquarters during the English Civil War.”

She added: “After its desecration by Cromwell’s troops, the castle lay sadly neglected, much of it in ruins. Sudeley’s fortunes were, however, to change some 200 years later when it was acquired by the Dent brothers, famous glove manufacturers from Worcester. They set upon an ambitious programme of restoration and, upon their death, this task was taken up by their nephew John Croucher Dent and his wife Emma Brocklehurst.

“Today, Sudeley is home to the Dent-Brocklehurst family who are dedicated to Sudeley’s continued restoration and regeneration of the spectacular gardens, with particular emphasis on conservation and sustainability.”

The nearest village is Winchcombe, where some residents are none too happy that police have imposed four days of parking restrictions on its normally sleepy lanes to cope with the expected influx of paparazzi and sightseers for the (English) “showbiz wedding of the year”.

Tim Petchey, chairman of the local council, called the parking ban an “imposition”.

But the local vicar, Rev John Partington, who will be helping to officiate at tomorrow’s ceremony, welcomed the event as “good news for Winchcombe”.

The wedding will be followed by dinner and dancing. The dress code is black tie and the host is “Mrs Roy Hurley”, Hurley’s mother, Angela. Her father died in 1996.

Afterwards, the new Mr and Mrs Nayar (though some have suggested the husband should, more fittingly, be called Mr Arun Hurley) and their guests will drive 30 miles to Hurley’s home village of Barnsley in the Cotswolds for another party. She has booked the exclusive 11-bedroom Barnsley House Hotel and its sister property, The Village Pub, at a discount — they are owned, after all, by a good friend, Tim Haigh.

Instead of conventional gifts, guests are being asked to buy livestock — pigs, cows, perhaps even an Indian goat or two — to build up Hurley’s 400-acre organic farm at Barnsley near Cirencester. This encouraged one newspaper to run the headline, “With this pig Liz thee weds.”

On Sunday, providing the guests manage to get up in time after all-night revelry, a pheasant shoot is planned before the wedding party catches a late night flight to India en route Jodhpur and the really serious partying in Mumbai.

The switch from the soft green of the Cotswolds to the wind-swept desert kingdom of Jodhpur could scarcely be more dramatic. Gaj Singh, who is a million notches up the aristocratic ladder and who hosted Prince Charles and Camilla last year, has graciously consented to accommodate Hurley and Nayar in his personal quarters at Umaid Bhavan.

His foreign guests are unlikely to have stayed anywhere quite as magnificent as the maharaja’s art-deco palace, built 65 years ago on a hill and spread over 26 acres.

One evening function, it is understood, will be held not far away at the imposing 548-year-old Mehrangarh Fort.

Gaj Singh might regale his guests with how the British huntin’ and shootin’ set stole the “Jodhpur riding breeches” from his family and how he is “waiting for royalty”.