Sao Paulo – Young billionaire heiress Athina Roussel – granddaughter of the late Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis – danced the samba until dawn Sunday after wedding Brazilian equestrian Alvaro Affonso de Miranda Neto in a sumptuous ceremony here the night before.
The 20-year-old bride is the sole heir to the Onassis fortune of some $3 billion, while the 32-year-old Miranda – known as “Doda” – has won bronze medals at both the Atlanta and Sydney Olympic games. The couple met in Belgium in 2002, where they were horseback riding and where Athina was living at the time.
The wedding ceremony and lavish reception were held amid very heavy security at the Maria Luisa and Oscar Americano Foundation’s combination garden and museum, but the curtain of secrecy was breached on Sunday when “indiscrete” invited guests revealed details of the affair.
About 1,000 persons – the cream of Brazilian society, among other nations – attended the ceremony and party amid tight security provided by at least 400 guards.
A 40-piece orchestra, Brazilian singers and disc jockeys provided the music while the guests consumed some 1,000 bottles of Veuve Clicquot champagne and countless “caipirinhas.”
Social columnist Narcisa Tamborindeguy – one of the invitees – reported in O Dia on Sunday morning that the religious ceremony ended before midnight, after which the couple were married in a private civil ceremony. Hours of partying followed on the grounds of the art museum in this city’s Morumbi district.
Athina, wearing a stunning pearl-colored gown designed by Italy’s Valentino, was escorted to the altar on the arm of her father-in-law-to-be, Ricardo Miranda, a millionaire businessman heavily connected in the equestrian world.
“Doda wept copiously while he watched his betrothed walk to the altar,” Tamborindeguy reported.
After the Catholic Mass, a Greek Orthodox priest blessed the new couple. The service was ecumenical, since Athina is Greek Orthodox and Doda is Roman Catholic.
Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “Fly Me To The Moon” was the tune chosen by the pair to kick off the post-wedding celebration, and the guests formed an enormous line eagerly awaiting their turn to give Athina and her new husband their best wishes.
Presumably after accepting the congratulations of her guests, “Athina left her best behavior on the table and danced the samba without stopping. The waiters, not the couple, cut the cake,” which had a combination filling of chocolate, white chocolate and pistachio, the columnist wrote.
The cuisine was French, selected by the French-born Athina.
Dozens of journalists from Brazilian media and from several other countries reported from the entrance of the garden museum where the so-called “wedding of the year” took place.
Private guards roamed the property under express orders to prevent audacious photographers and journalists from scaling the estate’s walls to crash the party and snap a few potentially very valuable celebrity shots or do some direct reporting.
Fifty-six Sao Paulo police officers also helped to keep order in the area, and the authorities reported no incidents.
The invited guests arrived in luxury armored vehicles and had to display specially-provided identification cards, along with a photo ID, and pass through metal detectors before they were allowed in, a process that took about an hour. Cameras and cellphones were forbidden past the checkpoints.
Athina’s father, Thierry Roussel, recently lost a legal battle with his daughter for control of her fortune. The French-born Roussel – who did not attend the wedding ceremony – was married to Cristina Onassis, Aristotle’s daughter, for three years until her death in Buenos Aires in 1988, when Athina was just three years old.
The 37-year-old Cristina left the entire fortune she had inherited from her father to her only daughter.
Athina has decided to take the name of her husband and will henceforth be known as Athina de Miranda. She recently bought a huge luxury Sao Paulo penthouse apartment to share with Doda.
In late November, Doda left the Brazilian Olympic equestrian team with the hope of joining Greece’s and competing for that country at the 2008 Games in Beijing.
