Richard Quest: Fireworks, friends and frayed nerves

CNN's Richard Quest

GLASLOUGH, Republic of Ireland -- CNN's Richard Quest is outside Castle Leslie in Ireland, where the wedding of Paul McCartney and Heather Mills has taken place. He described the scene to CNN International Anchor Fionnuala Sweeney.

QUEST: All day we have seen people arriving here at Castle Leslie. We have seen some of the celebrities landing at Belfast airport -- Ringo Starr was one of those along with Twiggy. We also saw Musician Chrissie Hynde coming into Belfast.

Ringo Starr flew on a private jet into Belfast, and we were then told he was in the last limousine that swept through the gates here at Castle Leslie.

The rest of the family and friends -- and remember Paul McCartney said he wanted this to be a celebration with family and friends, this wasn't a celebrity outing -- flew in on flights from London and Liverpool, and then took buses from the airport, which is 80 miles away.

CNN NewsPass VIDEO The people of Glaslough prepare for the wedding of a living legend (June 10) Play video   LOCATOR MAP Where is Glaslough, Ireland?    EXTRA INFORMATION Gallery: McCartney-Mills wedding    MORE STORIES • On the scene: CNN's Richard Quest at the wedding  • McCartney halts 'Hey Jude' sale  • Sir Paul sings tribute to Harrison  • Sir Paul to remarry  • Recurring Beatlemania  • The Beatles: In their own words  • 'Revolver' voted best album ever    RESOURCES • EW.COM: All about Paul McCartney  • PEOPLE.COM: Celebrity weddings  • InStyle.com: Weddings 2002

They all arrived roughly at around 3.30 p.m. local time, and that is interesting.

We were told the service was going to start between 3.30 p.m. and 4 p.m..

In the event, what we are hearing here is that after those buses arrived, the service was just about to begin, when the organisers -- and by that we assume McCartney and Mills themselves -- became very annoyed at a low-flying helicopter that was taking pictures of Heather Mills walking into church.

And the net effect was that they delayed the start of the ceremony.

Apparently though the celebrations are now on. They are in the marquees, they are eating the Indian vegetarian foods, they are perhaps listening to music from Paul McCartney's touring band, and other artists -- certainly Macca is supposed to perform as well. We are told there is still a very bad taste in the mouth about what has happened.

There will be fireworks right at the very end of the celebrations. Then we are told -- and this is just gossip -- that the two of them will fly off in a helicopter after a lights display.

While we were waiting for the celebrations, everything went very quiet over Glaslough -- and I shouldn't think it's very noisy here at any time -- but it went even quieter than normal.

That's because of the Ireland-Saudi Arabia football game. The only sound was the cheers when the first, then the second, then the third goals went in, and then the streets came alive.

Yes, the other very big story here is that Ireland have gone through to the next round of the World Cup.