THE FIRST pictures have emerged of tennis star Rafael Nadal's wedding to his teenage sweetheart Mery Perelló on Saturday in a high-security ceremony at the Sa Fortalesa estate near their birth town of Manacor, Mallorca.
Only two clear photographs, shown here, have been released, both by the Rafa Nadal Foundation – a charitable organisation Mery, whose name is sometimes written as 'Meri', works for as project developer and which is chaired by the 12-times Roland Garros winner's mum, Ana Parera.
The rest, official pictures from GTRES, are from a distance and show crowds of guests, who include top celebrities, on the balcony, enjoying the sunshine that bathed the island for the couple's big day.
Shots are clearly visible of Rafa's sister, María Isabel ('Maribel') Nadal Parera – in a red satin dress - who was Mery's best friend at school and who introduced them when the bride was 14 and the soon-to-be-famous sportsman was 17.
They started going out with each other two years later, and have been together since.
Guests at the wedding, as well as family, included footballers and, of course, tennis players, and their equally famous partners – singers Shakira and Enrique Iglesias and the latter's half-sister Ana Boyer accompanied their spouses, FC Barcelona's Gerard Piqué, Russian model and former tennis star Anna Kournikova, and Rafa's compatriot and fellow player Fernando Verdasco.
Ex-Real Madrid goalkeeper, now playing for Oporto, Iker Casillas and his reporter and presenter wife Sara Carbonero were invited, but it is not known yet whether they were able to attend, since Iker, 38, underwent a stent operation for a heart attack in summer, just days before Sara, 35, had surgery for early-stage ovarian cancer.
Rex Emeritus King Juan Carlos I, 81, and his wife Queen Sofía, were at the ceremony, since the retired monarch is a long-standing friend of Rafa's, although their son and daughter-in-law, King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia and their daughters, Princess Leonor and the Infanta Sofía, did not go along as they were in Oviedo for the Princess of Asturias Awards, where Leonor, who will be 14 in 10 days' time, gave her first official speech as a Royal.
Little else was known about the wedding – except that celebrity chef Quique Dacosta, owner of eponymous restaurants in Valencia and in Dénia (Alicante province), provided the catering, and that the couple had gone on honeymoon before their big day, in the Bahamas.
But designer Rosa Clará confirmed on social media on Saturday that she had created the dress specially in her studio, Atelier Rosa Clará.
Described as an 'elegant and sophisticated haute couture design with pure and delicate lines', Mery's gown was made mostly with hand-woven French lace, with a rounded neckline, long sleeves and semi-precious stones embedded into the lace pattern and the plain, natural crêpe silk skirt. It was hand-embroidered with a simple, detachable train and a separate veil, and straight-cut – no meringues in sight.
Overall, it was fairly demure, in keeping with the couple themselves – school friends who have never lived anywhere except Manacor or, in Mery's case, Palma de Mallorca, where she went to university and worked for two companies before joining her husband's charitable foundation, they were together for nearly 13 years before Rafa proposed to Mery on holiday in Rome in May 2018 and have taken 17 months to tie the knot.
Reporters trying to find out more information ahead of the wedding – details of which were leaked to the media against Rafa's and Mery's wishes earlier this year – were met with smiles and polite refusals, and could get nothing out of their neighbours, either: residents in Manacor said they were 'just another couple from the village', nothing starry, and many had known them since they were small children.
