Italian mayor chats up TomKat wedding

U.S. actor Tom Cruise, and U.S. actress Katie Holmes with their daughter Suri, who became engaged in June 2005, leave a restaurant in Rome, early Friday Nov. 17, 2006.(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

ROME - Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes will likely wed Saturday in a Scientology ceremony held at a 15th-century Italian castle in a lakeside town near Rome, the town's mayor said Thursday.

The wedding party, along with guests, are then expected to attend a banquet the same day in Rome, Bracciano Mayor Patrizia Riccioni said.

For weeks rumors have focused on Odescalchi Castle in the sleepy town of Bracciano as the likely venue for the celebrity wedding. Riccioni told a news conference Thursday she had met the couple the day before somewhere outside of her town, but she would not say where.

She was coy about other details, too, saying only that she expected the couple to arrive Saturday morning at the castle, which overlooks Lake Bracciano, for what she believed would be a Scientology wedding ceremony, followed by a banquet. She said she expected the couple to return to the Italian capital the same day.

Cruise and Holmes have been staying this week at a luxury hotel near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

"I want to thank Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes for choosing this venue for such an important event," Riccioni said.

While she stopped short of confirming the actual date of the wedding, the town's Web site late Thursday had a picture of Cruise and Holmes under the headline, "The wedding of the year in Bracciano, Saturday, 18 November 2006."

In the Italian capital, meanwhile, Cruise and Holmes held a dinner at a small restaurant near the Spanish Steps, drawing several hundred fans and curious people hoping to catch a glimpse of the stars.

The area immediately surrounding Nino restaurant was cordoned off, and private security officials crowded the area.

The restaurant owner's daughter, Francesca Luti, told TG Sky 24 news channel that Cruise was "a regular," and that the evening's menu included some of the actor's favorite dishes - gnocchi, several types of pasta, ravioli with truffles and artichokes.

Those spotted going into the restaurant included "Mission Impossible III" director, J.J. Abrams, Brooke Shields and Jennifer Lopez. Lopez's husband, singer Marc Anthony, briefly stepped out to smoke a cigarette.