From Times Online
December 6, 2007
Clintons to attend Google weddingA string of high-profile guests are descending on a private island in the Caribbean for the wedding of Larry Page, Google's billionaire co-founderBill and Hillary Clinton are among the guests expected to descend on a tiny Caribbean island this weekend for the wedding of Larry Page, the billionaire co-founder of Google.
Mr Page and his girlfriend, Lucy Southworth, are to marry in a private ceremony on Necker Island, a small 74-acre enclave owned by Richard Branson, with about 600 guests, Times Online can confirm.
Mr Branson, another member of the billionaires' club and a good friend of Mr Page's, will be best man.
Details of the event have been kept intensely private, but it is understood that celebrities including Bono, U2's frontman, as well as high-profile politicians, will be flown on private jets from around the world to attend.
Mr Page's party has booked out the entire island, which has space for 28 guests and usually costs $48,000 - or $1,679 per person - per night to hire - for the event, which was first reported on on the Silicon Valley gossip website valleywag.com last month.
Other guests will be ferried in from nearby Gorda Island, a 10-minute boat ride away, where hotels have also completely booked up months in advance.
According to its website, Necker Island, located in the British Virgin Islands, is a "stunning and unspoilt area of the Caribbean" which is surrounded by turqouise waters, coral reefs and pristine sandy beaches.
Guests can only arrive by helicopter or boat, and can choose from a number of secluded Balinese-style beach houses, which are adorned by luxurious pools and Jaccuzzis, and sport their own private chefs. Mr Branson, the Virgin entrepreneur, has owned the island since the 1970s.
A spokesman for a helicopter company on Gorda Island told Times Online today: "It's definitely a Google wedding. I understand that Bill and Hillary (Clinton) are flying in tomorrow.
But the company is keeping it very quiet."
Another helicopter firm that Times Online understands will be taking guests to the event from St Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands, and a 40-minute flight away, refused to comment.
Mr Page, who is 34 and worth an estimated $18.5 billion, founded the world's most popular search engine with his classmate, Sergey Brin, in 1998.
He is understood to be a good friend of Mr Branson, who used the help of Google's satellite imaging tool, Google Earth, to try and find his friend Steve Fossett, the adventurer, when the latter's plane went missing in September.
Mr Page's fiancee, who is 27, is a PhD student in 'biomedical informatics' at Stanford University, and also has a masters degree in science from Oxford University.
The pair have reportedly been together for over a year.
A spokesman for Google declined to comment.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3011672.ecePHOTO: The Great House, Necker Islands, British Virgin islands