Celebrity Mound

Eva Longoria and Tony Parker made it legal at Paris’s city hall on Friday, with a big church wedding and lavish reception still to come.

The basketball star, 25, and the actress, 32, became man and wife at a civil ceremony – as required by French law – at the Mairie (city hall for the 4th Arrondissement) in Place Baudoyer, not far from Notre Dame.

“They are married. They were married here by the Mayor of Paris, Monsieur Bertrand Delanoë,” a spokesperson for the 4th Arrondissement district confirms.

(Tony Parker & the mayor of Paris)

Delanoë told PEOPLE of the couple he’d just married, “Their international reputations cannot escape me – but for me they are just Eva and Tony – two young people, very appealing, who love each other and who are at a very important moment in their life.”

Just before 4:30 p.m. Paris time, wedding guests filtered out of the building and entered limousines. A large, white floral bouquet was placed in the rear of the stretch limo. The crowd, which had swelled to about 1,000, cheered loudly.

Only a few friends and family members attended the low-key ceremony.

Earlier, Parker hosted a lunch for friends, who were ferried to the restaurant in three white stretch limos – including one Hummer – before returning to his hotel to dress for the ceremony.

Longoria and her family, meanwhile, visited the Chanel atelier for a final fitting. Clutching gift bags from the design house and wearing the Chanel ribbons and rosettes around their wrists, the group was then ferried to city hall, where hundreds of fans and dozens of reporters and photographers waited outside.

The bride’s guests arrived in a Hummer with California plates around 2:45 p.m. Exactly four minutes later, Longoria stepped out of one of the other limos wearing a rose empire-waist minidress. (For the ceremony, she would wear a white tulle and sequin embroidered dress and tulle jacket by Chanel haute couture.)

She waved to cheering fans on her way into the building. The groom appeared just before 3, greeting officials amid a chorus of cheers and calls of “To-nee!”

With the civil service complete, the newlyweds will cement their union with a ceremony at the Church of Saint Germain l’Auxerriois on Saturday.

(The scene for tomorrow’s big day: Paris’s Eglise Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois)

Invited guests – about 250 of them – include Desperate Housewives pals Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Nicollette Sheridan, James Denton, Ricardo Chavira and the show’s creator Marc Cherry (Marcia Cross sent her regrets because she couldn’t leave her twin babies).

Also expected are Parker’s San Antonio Spurs teammates, coaches and friends, as well as Michael Douglas and wife Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jessica Alba and boyfriend Cash Warren.

Longoria and Parker got engaged in November and immediately made plans to have what her rep called a “big, happy ceremony with lots of family and friends” in Parker’s native France.

Saturday’s guests can look forward to a lavish reception at the Chateau of Vaux le Vicomte just outside Paris, where “the big color theme is red,” says a source. “It’s going to be a fairy-tale wedding.”

Friday’s ceremony capped off a week of partying, shopping and socializing, including a his-and-her bachelor party in St. Tropez. The newlyweds have been staying in an $11,000-a-night suite at the Park Hyatt Paris Vendome hotel.

“Paris is such a romantic city,” says a source close to the couple. “They are so excited to get married there.”

(source & source)

For Tony Parker, only French-made wedding cakes will do. The NBA champion, set to marry “Desperate Housewives” star Eva Longoria next week, is staying coy about plans for the event.

Speaking to reporters Thursday in Paris, the San Antonio Spurs point guard shrugged off questions about the wedding date and venue, believed to be July 7 at a French chateau.

“I don’t care where I’m going to get married,” he said. “It’s a girls’ thing.” To other queries, he replied: “That’s a question you should ask Eva.”

He dismissed one rumor: that the wedding cake would be flown in from the United States.

“Why take a cake from the United States … if it is France that makes the best cakes?” he asked.

While Longoria picked the wedding site – believed to be the luxurious chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte – Parker said he was taking charge of the food and music. And that’s all he would say.

Parker, who was voted the most valuable player of the NBA finals earlier this month after the Spurs won their fourth title in nine seasons, wanted to talk about basketball.

“I think that this is just the beginning,” he said. “I still have a long way to go because my idol is Michael Jordan and he won six titles so I’m only halfway there.”

Looking long-term, Parker said he would base his decisions on fellow players Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili and coach Gregg Popovich. Parker is signed with the Spurs through 2009.

“My decisions about the future and where I am going to play and if I’m going to stay in San Antonio will depend on how long Duncan wants to play, Ginobili and Popovich.”

Just as David beat Goliath, upstart OK! has given People a knuckle sandwich in the ongoing weekly-celebrity-magazine wars.

Sources said People “laid the groundwork” for landing exclusive photos of Eva Longoria and Tony Parker’s July 7 wedding – but Page Six has learned that OK! won the frenzied bidding. Sources close to the negotiations said OK! paid more than $2 million.

It was a surprising – and costly – end to the battle for the privilege to snap the nuptials, which the “Desperate Housewives” hottie and her San Antonio Spur fiancé plan to hold in a romantic castle in Paris.

“People editors broke the story of their wedding and were working hard with Eva’s reps [to secure the picture rights],” said a source close to the talks. “They were upset about losing the photos.”

Other sources suggested that previous coverage in People of the couple’s rumored breakup, including a photo of Parker with another woman in New York, may have influenced the result.

But a well-placed source said that had nothing to do with it, that “it was [entirely] a matter of money, straight up to the final negotiation.” Another insider said, “Everyone wanted the photos . . . but everyone knows OK! will pay [a lot].”

People, which reportedly paid $4.1 million for the first photos of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s baby, Shiloh, tried to sweeten the deal for Longoria by offering to run the snaps in sister publication InStyle.

“But there’s the InStyle curse,” said one wag. “Half the marriages end before the photos can even be published.”

A rep for OK! declined to comment on what it paid, saying, “We don’t release numbers.”

OK! editor-in-chief Sara Ivens told us, “These were obviously highly coveted photos, and we were thrilled to negotiate the exclusive rights. Covering great moments with the celebrities that we love is what the magazine’s all about.”

Neither People’s nor Longoria’s reps would comment.

(source)