Paparazzi high and dry as Brooke and Andre marry

Brooke Shields, the actress once known as the Lolita of the big screen, donned a wedding dress with a 5ft train to marry Andre Agassi, the tennis star, in an evening ceremony in California on Saturday. While four helicopters filled with paparazzi hovered outside, a string ensemble and the San Francisco Boys Choir performed at the ceremony.

Only around 100 guests attended the wedding at St John's Episcopal Chapel, in the coastal city of Monterey. The couple exchanged vows at 6:45 pm, in front of the Reverend Charles Gard, pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Glendale and a Shields family friend.

The reception was held at the expensive Stonepine Resort in Carmel Valley in Monterey, which is 115 miles south of San Francisco.

"Both are the nicest unassuming kind of people," said one of the wedding guests. "They were very simple, straightforward and kind."

Shields, 31, is currently enjoying being the star of the television comedy Suddenly Susan. The series has been hugely successful and has resurrected a career which had suffered from a string of flop movies.

A model since she was two-years-old, Shields has appeared in several films, including Louis Malle's Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon. She is a Princeton University graduate.

Agassi, 26, won the gold medal for the US in the tennis event at the Atlanta Olympic Games last summer. He also won the Australian Open in 1995, the US Open in 1994 and Wimbledon in 1992.

The couple were introduced at a tennis match in 1993 and kept in touch by fax until their first date.

But three months ago, Agassi spent pounds 20,000 publicly declaring his devotion to Shields, with a full-page advertisement in the programme at the Golden Globe TV and movie awards.

Yesterday the couple were again looking for privacy, by keeping the ceremony as low-key as possible. Telephone messages left at Agassi Enterprises in Las Vegas and with representatives for Shields were not returned.