Brad and Angelina: They did it!

The smile said it all when Ange emerged last week proudly showing off her wedding band.

When in November last year, Brad Pitt said of marriage to Angelina Jolie, “The time has come… the time is nigh. It’s soon,” it now appears he was far from joking. Hollywood watchers went into a spin when Ange stepped out last week wearing, for the first time since their engagement a year ago, a shiny gold wedding band on her ring finger. The king and queen of Tinseltown had finally made their eight-year relationship official!

In a shock revelation, it has just emerged that the most photographed couple in the world managed to marry under a shroud of secrecy in a tropical paradise. Angelina made the very public confirmation of their exciting news on a charity trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo. In place of the $250,000 engagement sparkler Brad gave her in April last year, she proudly and deliberately showed off an unmistakable wedding band to waiting photographers.

Now those closest to Brad, 49, and Angelina, 37, are finally able to share details of what was a breathtakingly romantic wedding. “I didn’t want to be the one to give away their secret,” one member of their inner circle tells Woman’s Day under the condition of anonymity. “Brad and Ange knew that if they planned a big Hollywood wedding it would turn into a zoo. They were always doing this for their kids and the last thing they wanted was paparazzi helicopters hovering overhead and security guards everywhere.”

So the family stole away to the Caribbean paradise of Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos Islands at Christmas, where they said “I do”. “They got married at a beautiful beachside estate that belongs to their friend [fashion designer] Donna Karan,” reveals our source. “No other stars were present. The only guests were the kids, Brad’s parents Jane and Bill, his brother Doug and Doug’s wife Julie.”