Wedding for Letourneau and former student

Student was second-grader when they met

Friday, May 20, 2005 Posted: 8:31 PM EDT (0031 GMT)

SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Security leading up to the Friday night wedding of Mary Kay Letourneau and her former sixth-grade student rivaled that of a top-secret government operation -- from secret instructions to a hush-hush rendezvous and identity checks.

Letourneau, 43, and Vili Fualaau, 22, have been in the spotlight since she was imprisoned in 1997 for raping Fualaau. But when she was released last August, the couple -- who have two daughters together -- reunited.

Since then, details of their wedding have been closely guarded -- except for a series of interviews by "Entertainment Tonight" and its sister TV show, "The Insider." The shows have exclusive rights to the nuptials. Show officials said they did not pay for the wedding.

"Things are good. The bride and groom are getting ready," Janet Annino, ET's co-executive producer in Seattle for the wedding, said Friday afternoon. She confirmed the wedding was at a winery in Woodinville, about 20 miles northeast of Seattle, but declined to discuss specifics.

"The flowers are still going up, and last minute lighting is being set up," she said.

The couple first met when Fualaau was in the second grade. Their relationship became sexual when he was 12 and she was a 34-year-old married mother of four, a teacher at a suburban elementary school.

Letourneau was pregnant with Fualaau's first child when she was arrested in 1997. She pleaded guilty to second-degree child rape and was sentenced to 71/2 years in prison, with all but six months suspended.

Within weeks of her release, she was caught having sex with Fualaau in her car and ordered to serve the remainder of her sentence. She gave birth to the couple's second daughter while serving time.