THE newlywed Elizabeth Hurley awoke yesterday in the sumptuous surroundings of Sudeley Castle to be offered a breakfast of organic eggs.

It was a reward after subjecting herself to an exacting prenuptial diet that saw her eat as little as six raisins for a snack and survive on vegetable shakes so she could turn herself into what she described as a “glowing goddess” for her marriage.

Hurley, 41, could reflect on a job well done. She and her groom, Arun Nayar, 42, the half-Indian, half-German son of a textile millionaire, paid £250 for a superintendent registrar and her assistant to conduct a secret ceremony inside the castle on Friday.

In doing so, they hoodwinked the paparazzi waiting in the bushes around the 15th-century Gloucestershire castle for a service yesterday — and picked up a fee of £1m for an exclusive deal for their wedding photographs with Hello! magazine. It marked a return to the sort of fees that Hurley used to enjoy from her Estée Lauder cosmetics deals and roles in films such as Bedazzled and Austin Powers.

Guests such as Sir Elton John, the models Kate Moss and Elle Macpherson and Prince Pavlos of Greece — all instructed not to bring cameras — were invited to a religious celebration of the marriage at a chapel in the castle grounds last night. A medieval banquet awaited them, styled on a feast served at the castle to Henry VIII’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, and accompanied by 200 bottles of vintage champagne.

John Partington, the vicar of St Peter’s Church in nearby Winchcombe who conducted the service, said: “I resisted the temptation to take my autograph book because it seems unprofessional.”

The castle, once dubbed the “handsomest habitation” in all England by the 17th-century historian Thomas Fuller, stood in for the romance of Manderley, the house in Daphne du Mau-rier’s book Rebecca, in which Hurley has said she dreams of waking up.

It comes free, courtesy of its owner, Hurley’s close friend Henry Dent-Brocklehurst. He wanted to repay the actress for putting him up for two months in her flat overlooking Sunset Strip in Los Angeles when he was struggling to set up a video production company. It was to the castle too that Hurley retreated after her former lover, Hugh Grant, the actor, was caught in his car with the prostitute Divine Brown.

Friends said Hurley had planned to marry in a white, flowing Donatella Versace gown topped with a diamond crucifix.

This week Hurley will slip into less glamorous wear but stay in equally luxurious quarters when the couple and many of yesterday’s guests arrive in India for the second part of their wedding celebrations.

She and Nayar, who was born in Leeds while his father was attending the city’s university, will undergo a traditional Hindu ceremony in the palace of Jodhpur’s Maharajah Gaj Singh on Friday. He will wear a saffron-col-oured turban and she has ordered a £5,000 pink sari from a top Indian designer.

Additional reporting: John Elliott

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