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Paparazzi jilted by Brad and Angelina

The mayor of Cernobbio was feeling a little frayed. "We are at the end of our rope," wailed the town spokesman, Giuseppe Salvioni, after a weekend in which the waters of Lake Como frothed with paparazzi, pranksters, helicopters and police launches.

Primed for "official duties", Mayor Simona Saladini had put on her best clothes, had her hair done in the local salon and kept the registry office open for an extra five hours, until 6pm on Saturday. It appeared, however, that she had been strung along. The mayor, local residents, curious tourists and 200 journalists were cruelly jilted at the altar when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie failed to get married at the Italian resort.

There was no cancellation of the union of "Brangelina" and it was unclear whether the world's most famous divorcees had been joined together in another hip European playground of the rich and famous, whether they had wearied of the wedding or whether they had ever intended to get married in the first place.

Their publicists have refused to comment for months on rumours that the pair would wed in the spring. Fuelled by a report in the local newspaper, Corriere di Como, two weeks ago, gossip columnists decided that George Clooney's tasteful lakeside mansion at Laglio, on the shores of Lake Como, was the venue. Police were placed on alert and the villa was attended by a local security firm.

A Clooney lookalike turned up, as did two local men in a bad impersonation of the Hollywood couple, but the bride and groom did not.

Paparazzi broke away from Lake Como and raced to Paris to congregate outside a flat where Jolie once stayed, near the headquarters of the French counter-intelligence agency.

Another rumour avered that Angelina had retired to her room in a hotel on the Côte d'Azur, too tired to wed. It began to appear that you could pick any romantic destination in Europe and spin it as the wedding location.

The media abhors a vacuum more than nature. Two hundred journalists were left to find romantic portents in every banal detail around Lake Como. Workmen pottered about Clooney's villa last week, installing new spiked railings: clearly the final security flourish for a lavish reception! Nearby, the luxurious Renaissance-era hotel Villa d'Este was decorated with white flowers: fit for a movie star's wedding! The local council converted a small fishing boat for wedding couples to use: just in time for Brangelina!

Villa Erba on Lake Como was also on the nuptials hitlist because Pitt and Clooney had filmed scenes from Ocean's Twelve there. Reporters were given a grand tour, clocking evidence of a new bathroom being installed that could not be construed as anything other than a romantic renovation. But who would choose to get married at their place of work?

Pitt, 42, split from Jennifer Aniston last year, soon after filming Mr and Mrs Smith with Jolie, 30. Aniston and Pitt's divorce came through last month. Pitt has already taken steps to adopt Jolie's two adopted children, while Jolie is expecting at least one child later this year.

Had there been a change of plan or was this all part of a paparazzi-foiling masterplan? Or was the supposedly discrete Italian resort being made to pay for its indiscretion?

The hotels and restaurants of Cernobbio could at least console themselves with a brisk trade from tourists and journalists that kickstarted the tourist season a month early. Prices for everything from room service to parking suddenly inflated. Fishermen pocketed €60 an hour to take news crews out on to the water.

Which set the frustrated media pondering an alternative theory: had they been nobbled by masterful self-publicists of Cernobbio? Was it all a wonderful advertisement for conjugal rites on Lake Como? The Italian newspaper Il Giornale estimated that the free publicity generated by the coverage was worth a cool €1m for the area.

A far from disappointed Pietro Sacchi, owner of Harry's Bar in Cernobbio, said: "I'd like to thank Brad and Angelina, and George of course. They have made us all very happy. We have done very good business." Asked when he thought the marriage would take place, Mr Sacchi said slyly: "Maybe next weekend?"

How long can the people of Cernobbio spin out this speculation? Like the town's spokesman, observers might like to untether another cliché: how long is a piece of string?

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