|PIC1|The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has expressed his support for terminally ill Jade Goody and defended her decision to stay in the public eye despite having only weeks to live.
The 27-year-old reality star is set to tie the knot to fiance Jack Tweed in a fairytale wedding today at Down Hall country house in Hatfield Heath, Essex.
Around 300 guests are expected to attend the private ceremony and Goody has expressed her determination to walk down the aisle unaided.
Goody will be wearing a £3,500 cream-coloured wedding gown given to her by Harrods owner, Mohamed al Fayed. The dress has been fitted with a small pouch to hold her cancer drugs.
The wedding has been hastily arranged over the last few days, with Goody apparently making many of the preparations from a laptop on her hospital bed.
She appeared in high spirits outside her home yesterday with her bridesmaids who jokingly showed their support by wearing skin coloured caps on their heads.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor told Sky News, “I think she needs our prayers. I think she’s a brave woman to face up to her cancer, which seems to be terminal. A lot of people might say, ‘well, it’s better if she did everything in quiet’, but I think she’s made a decision that she wants the last months of her life to teach people something.
“She wants society to know something about the terrible disease that cancer is, and to find better ways of dealing with it.”
Cancer Research said it had received thousands more visitors than usual on the cervical cancer page of its website after Goody’s diagnosis last August. Goody has said previously that she wants her plight to publicise cervical cancer so that more women will not have to go through what she has gone through.
Goody is expected to earn £800,000 for selling the rights for the ceremony to OK! Magazine for £700,000 and Living TV reportedly paying £100,000 to capture the event on cameras for their TV series, Jade.
After hearing her cancer was terminal, Goody said she wanted to earn as much money as possible for her two sons Bobby, five, and Freddie, four.
She also said she would like to christen them and teach them about Jesus before she dies so that they know mummy is looking down on them from Heaven.
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