Sao Paulo – They’re not royalty, but the wedding here this weekend of multi-billionaire Athina Onassis and equestrian champion Alvaro Affonso de Miranda Neto is this big South American country’s nuptial event of the year.
Athina, 20, sole heiress to the fortune amassed by her grandfather, the late Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, will wed Miranda, 32, known as “Doda,” on Saturday at a “private” ceremony before some 750 guests belonging to the cream of Brazilian society.
The civil and religious ceremony will take in the pastoral setting of the Maria Luisa and Oscar Americano Foundation, a house-turned-museum located in Sao Paulo’s exclusive Morumbi neighborhood.
Athina and Doda, who is divorced and has a 5-year-old daughter, met in Belgium in 2002, where they both have done a lot of horseback riding, a common passion that has led them to the altar and in which Doda has won bronze medals at the Atlanta and Sydney Olympics.
Despite the secrecy shrouding wedding preparations, which include forcing service providers to sign contracts agreeing to heavy fines should members of their staff leak anything they see or hear, the couple has drawn extensive coverage in the social columns of Brazilian magazines and newspapers.
The few details known about the lavish wedding have been disclosed by people close to the bride and groom who insist on anonymity for fear of losing their prized invitations.
That is how the press learned that the bride’s dress was designed by Italian couturier Valentino and that star hairdresser Marco Antonio de Biaggi will do Athina’s makeup as well coiffure for a fee of $11,000, according to the magazine Veja.
The house-museum where the ceremony and reception are taking place was rented at a cost of $33,300, an affordable sum for Athina, heiress to a fortune estimated to total $3 billion.
Some 350 bodyguards were hired to protect attendees, and a helicopter will hover over the celebration.
Security measures also include air surveillance of the route the couple take to the wedding and the site where they will spend the night. Only a few intimates are privy to their honeymoon plans.
The guests, though rich and famous, won’t have to worry about what to get a couple who have everything, as the bride and groom have asked that in lieu of presents they contribute to a charity that Athina’s future mother-in-law sponsors.
“We would like to transfer your affection in the form of a donation to Aconchego day care center,” reads the invitation featured in the press.
Athina, who has been living in Sao Paulo for two years and identifies as much with Brazilian culture as with that of Greece, bought a 1,000-square-meter (10,750-square-foot) apartment in one of Sao Paulo’s most elegant neighborhoods to share with Doda, the magazine Epoca reported.
And if love has made the bride feel Brazilian, Doda may be responding in kind, as in late November he left the Brazilian Olympic equestrian team with the hope of joining Greece’s and competing for that country at the 2008 Games in Beijing.
