Marina Berlusconi, 42-year-old daughter of the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, married her ballet dancer sweetheart, Maurizio Vanadia, in Rome in december 2008. The pair became close after Marina met him socially and then went to see him in a production of Swan Lake at Milan’s La Scala. This was said to have appealed to her father, who wooed his second wife, the actress Veronica Lario, after watching her perform in a Milan theatre in 1980.

Marina, who since becoming chairman of the family firm Fininvest is listed by Fortune magazine as the eighth most powerful female manager in the world and by Forbes as Italy ‘s most influential woman, said in a recent interview with Chi magazine that on seeing Vanadia dance she behaved more like a schoolgirl. “I was leaning forward so far to see him with the binoculars my mother kept on elbowing me and saying ‘Watch out or you will fall into the stalls’.”

The nride wore D&G.