Justin Timberlake Marries Jessica Biel, Plus More Stars Who've Attempted Secret Weddings

Couple attempted to wed in secret.

ByABC News
October 18, 2012, 12:55 PM

Oct. 19, 2012— -- intro: Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel are officially married, but their wedding wasn't as much of a secret as they had probably hoped.

"It's great to be married, the ceremony was beautiful and it was so special to be surrounded by our family and friends," the couple told People magazine in a statement today.

Though Timberlake, 31, and Biel, 30, were incredibly tight-lipped about the wedding – according to People, even their guests didn't know the ceremony was happening in Italy until the last minute -- photos of the couple's pre-wedding party let the cat out of the bag before they tied the knot.

On Thursday, Us Weekly posted a picture of Biel and Timberlake's beach bash in Puglia, Italy. Famous guests included former "Saturday Night Live" star Andy Samberg, who appeared in the now infamous "d*** in a box" skit with Timberlake. Party goers enjoyed dinner and cocktails and were later treated to a 10-minute fireworks display.

After five years of on and off dating, the "SexyBack" singer proposed to the "Total Recall" actress in December. In August, reports surfaced that their wedding was imminent, but Biel brushed them off, telling E! she and Timberlake had not even started planning.

It's getting harder for celebrities to pull off a wedding without the press finding out first, but a few couples have managed to wed paparazzi free:

quicklist: 1title: Blake Lively and Ryan Reynoldstext: "Green Lantern" co-stars Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds pulled off a secret wedding last month. According to People magazine, the pair had an intimate ceremony Sept. 9 in a candelit barn at Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant, S.C. Martha Stewart, who attended the ceremony, called it a "charming, charming wedding." "Real people, real love. Just really nice [and] personal, which I think is what a wedding must and should be," she told People earlier this week. The couple wasn't legally led until Sept. 14, however, according to legal documents obtained by the magazine. Earlier this week, Lively flashed her monstrous engagement ring on the set of her show "Gossip Girl."media: 17201160

quicklist: 2title: Rosie O'Donnell and Michelle Roundstext: Rosie O'Donnell had been planning an August wedding with fiancee Michelle Rounds. Instead, the pair quietly married just before Rounds underwent her first round of surgery for desmoid tumors, a rare and life-threatening condition, in June. The couple kept the nuptials secret until August, when O'Donnell shared the news on her blog, writing: "We married in private before [Michelle's] surgery, just the [two] of us. When we r both well enough will have the wedding of r dreams surrounded by those we cherish." It's been a summer of surprises for O'Donnell. She had a heart attack earlier in August and wrote on her blog that it's a "miracle" she's still alive.media: 17201006

quicklist: 3title: Janet Jackson and Rene Elizondotext: One of the best kept secret marriages was between Janet Jackson and songwriter and music video director Rene Elizondo. When Jackson announced in 2000 that they were splitting, she was also sharing the news for the first time that they had been secretly married -- and not just breaking up but divorcing. ''I'm as surprised as you are that we managed to keep it a secret,'' Elizondo said at the time, of his marriage to the pop star, which lasted about eight years. media: 17201018

quicklist: 4title: Beyonce and Jay-Ztext: Beyonce and Jay-Z are notoriously quiet about their private lives. It took Beyonce six months before she would even talk about their secret wedding to Essence magazine, saying then that people put "too much emphasis" on rings. "It's just material and it's just silly to me," she said. Of course, she was sporting a huge diamond sparkler on her ring finger after the reported April 4, 2008, nuptials. People magazine reported that the couple exchanged the top-secret vows in front of a close circle of 40 friends and family at Jay-Z's extravagant penthouse, where a white tent was erected and filled with 70,000 white orchids. media: 15322296

quicklist: 5title: Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepiedtext: For months, Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied managed to fool the public about their marital status, tying the knot in August, six months after they first flaunted matching wedding rings at the Academy Awards this last February. Pictures from the August wedding were posted online. Us Weekly reported that the couple said "I do" in an intimate Jewish ceremony at a private residence in Big Sur, Calif. Portman and Millepied have a son, 1-year-old Aleph.media: 17201028

quicklist: 6title: Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chantext: Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan kept their nuptials secret, instead telling guests that they were attending a surprise graduation party for Chan in May 2012. The couple wed during a backyard ceremony at their Palo Alto, Calif., home five days after Chan graduated from medical school and two days after the social networking site had the biggest tech IPO in history. The wedding was announced, of course, on Zuckerberg's Facebook page, along with a photo of the happy couple. In less than an hour nearly 200,000 people had "liked" the news.media: 17201091

quicklist: 7title: Terrence Howard and Michelle Ghenttext: When Terrence Howard first mentioned his spouse during an interview at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2010, saying "To come here and be with my wife, it's the best feeling in the world," the world had no idea he was even married. Apparently Howard married second wife Michelle Ghent in January 2009. Unfortunately, the couple split in 2011 and had no problem spilling secrets about their nasty divorce that followed. media: 17201139