December 4, 2005
By Tales Azzoni
Sao Paolo, Brazil - Greek billionaire Athina Roussel Onassis wed a Brazilian Olympic equestrian star Saturday in a lavish ceremony held on a sprawling Sao Paulo estate.
Surrounded by palm trees and azalea bushes, the 20-year-old Onassis -granddaughter and sole heiress of the late shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis - wed Alvaro Afonso de Miranda, a 32-year-old divorced father who is the son of an insurance company owner.
Organisers - sworn to secrecy - refused to provide details of the ceremony, which was sealed off to anyone not carrying an invitation. Mario de Oliveira, an employee at the estate where the wedding took place, was only able to confirm the couple were married.
About 400 private security guards protected guests and warded off the flock of international paparazzi.
The wedding was held at the Maria Luiza and Oscar Americano Foundation, a 7,5-hectare property that includes a museum, tea house and cultural center in Sao Paulo's upscale Morumbi district.
The entire area had been sealed off for a week, with the chain-link fence surrounding the grounds covered with green plastic to keep passers-by from seeing the ceremony.
Guests used magnetic identification cards and passed through metal detectors, leaving behind cameras and cell phones. After parking their cars outside the wedding grounds, they were shuttled to the ceremony in luxury vehicles.
Despite all the secrecy, local media gathered some details ahead of the event.
The bride was to wear a dress by Italian designer Valentino, and more than 1 000 bottles of Veuve Clicquot champagne would be served, the groom's father, Ricardo Miranda, told IstoE Dinheiro newsmagazine.
The ceremony was ecumenical, because Onassis is Greek Orthodox and the groom is a divorced Roman Catholic. According to Veja newsmagazine, the couple signed a prenuptial agreement protecting all assets acquired before marriage.
Instead of gifts, the couple asked that guests make donations to the Aconchego day care centre for underprivileged children, IstoE Dinheiro reported. The centre cares for 25 children under the age of 5.
Miranda, known popularly as Doda, was a member of the Brazilian show-jumping team that won a bronze medal in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and another in 2000 in Sydney, Australia.
The couple, who share a love for horses and show jumping, met in 2002 at a riding center in Belgium owned by Brazilian equestrian Nelson Pessoa.
A year later, Onassis moved to Sao Paulo, where she shares a 990-square-metre apartment valued at 16-million reals with Miranda and Viviane, his 6-year-old daughter from his previous marriage, IstoE said.
Onassis, one of the world's richest women, was raised in Switzerland by her French-born father, Thierry Roussel, and inherited an estimated $2,7-billion from her grandfather on her 18th birthday. Local media said Roussel was not at the wedding.
The Onassis fortune was divided two ways, between Roussel Onassis's inheritance from her mother Christina Onassis, and a foundation that controls the shipping business and a vast charitable trust.
Aristotle Onassis died in 1975, two years after a plane crash that killed his son Alexander. Christina Onassis died of a heart attack in 1988 in Argentina.
Thierry Roussel and the Onassis Foundation are engaged in a tug-of-war for management of the shipping fortune left by Aristotle Onassis. - Sapa-AP
  
 
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