Celebrity spotters have a thin time at the church

Yesterday's wedding was a strangely small and intensely private affair for a powerful politician who many tip to be the next prime minister.

Yesterday's wedding was a strangely small and intensely private affair for a powerful politician who many tip to be the next prime minister.

Perhaps Gordon Brown, 49, and Sarah Macaulay, 36, were simply having the kind of wedding they really wanted, a genuine gathering of close friends and relations. Famous faces from international and national politics were conspicuously absent as the two dozen or so wedding guests arrived. Tony Blair was not there and no senior ministers had been invited. The most senior politician was Yvette Cooper, the Health minister, who was with her husband Ed Balls, Mr Brown's chief economic adviser, and their daughter Meriel.

Among the few other political intimates invited were Sue Nye, Mr Brown's personal assistant - who, it is said, originally introduced Mr and Mrs Brown - and her husband Gavyn Davies, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs andtipped as a future governor of the Bank of England. Two years ago, when many dismissed Mr Brown's relationship with Ms Macaulay as a PR sham, the couple were photographed, prior to a Budget, with Mr Davies's three-year-old son in an attempt to make the Chancellor look family friendly.

Late yesterday afternoon, at the end of the party, the guests and the newly married couple emerged looked happy. There was laughter and banter. Cameras clicked and videos recorded. The smallest guests' clothes were spoiled with chocolate and journalists had been treated to a glass of champagne, a prudent £11.99 a bottle from Sainsbury's.

Mr and Mrs Brown did not leave for the airport, and their honeymoon, in a limousine. The car was H-registration, a suitably down-to-earth finale. However two parties are planned for September, one in his constituency and one in London, where the celebrities may yet arrive.