Liz Hurley and Shane Warne: Our dream wedding!

It was love at first sight for the unlikely pair…now they are heading down the aisle after an old-fashioned proposal and a $100,000 sapphire and diamond “rock”.

It’s easy to see why Shane Warne fell for Elizabeth Hurley – she’s sexy, sophisticated, has a wicked sense of humour and flirts as outrageously as he does. Liz ticks a lot of boxes. Now, the actress, model and former punk rocker, who once sported pink hair and a nose ring and famously said, “I’d kill myself if I was as fat as Marilyn Monroe”, is about to tick the biggest one of all – ‘wife’, ‘spouse’, ‘the other half’, ‘the better half’, ‘the missus’.

What started as the most unlikely celebrity coupling of 2010 has become the love story of 2011, thanks to dozens of Tweet-nothings and a romantic proposal on bended knee from Australia’s most testosterone-fuelled cricketer. How Shane, 42, got Liz, 46, to agree to marry him is the source of much admiration or bemusement, depending on which side of the wicket (or world) one happens to be on. However, there’s no doubt he’s bowled this maiden over. Lovestruck Shane popped the question while the pair were in Scotland for the Dunhill Links Pro-Am Golf Championship, in which Shane competed.

Liz accepted the proposal and, with it, her “Angel” Shane’s promise – implicit in every marriage contract – to love, honour and be a good boy! And it appears he has been… given that he almost lost Liz last December after it was revealed he’d been sending texts to a Melbourne woman while romancing the British bombshell. The couple solved the problem by making a New Year’s Eve “clean slate” pact, reported in Woman’s Day, that excused any romantic indiscretions prior to January 1, 2011, and allowed them a fresh start together. And now that their lusty affair has blossomed into true love, it’s little wonder they couldn’t stop smiling the day after Shane popped the question.

The size of the engagement ring, and Liz’s penchant for stealing the show, make the couple’s visit to Melbourne next month for the Spring Racing Carnival and the opening of Shane’s Club 23 lounge bar at Crown Casino all the more exciting. The Aussie trip will be the perfect prelude to the main event – a summer wedding. There’s no doubt Liz and Shane’s big day will be glamorous and star-studded, and it’s odds on that whippet-thin Liz, who loves white jeans, white tie and a tiara or two, will opt for a big white wedding. It’s unlikely to be small or informal. Nor is it likely to be posh and grand like Liz’s Brit-and-Bollywood double wedding to Arun Nayar, an extravaganza of excess for which she was paid two million pounds by Hello! magazine and which ended in divorce earlier this year.