Liza Minnelli's wedding line-up

When Liza Minnelli weds her fourth husband tomorrow it won't only be the celebrity guests who draw gasps. Look at the present list.

It runs to 811 items totalling nearly £250,000, most of which will end up in the happy couple's kitchen. It might have been thought that three-times married Minnelli and her Broadway producer husband-to-be David Gest had by now acquired the usual stuff of domestic life. But at the top of their list, deposited with the celebrated Lalique, is a request for 300 drinking glasses, priced at an average £100 each.

The couple spent hours browsing New York's finest shops. At the Bergdorf Goodman department store they chose bowls, tablecloths and napkins - and a champagne cooler at £1,660. Along with a few Lalique vases in the £3,000-plus range, they picked dozens of pieces from Tiffany & Co, including silver forks, knives and spoons priced at £120 each.

The napkin rings - of which 16 are requested - cost £182 each. The Parmesan knife, however, is a modest single item costing only £83. And anyone really feeling the pinch could buy a crystal brandy snifter at £22, although ideally the newlyweds would like 16 of these, too.

Intriguingly, almost every present is devoted to eating and drinking. Is a subliminal impulse at work here? Minnelli has famously given up alcohol, although she admitted recently to a bit of a wobble just before Christmas when she checked into a rehabilitation clinic.

Friends say she is struggling to keep the figure she gained after a spectacularly successful diet. Is the kitchenware fest some kind of binge substitute? Certainly, the wedding list adds another layer of surrealism to an already bizarre occasion.

Picture New York's classically beautiful Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue. Since its inception in 1628 it has borne witness to many of the city's historic events. The Founding Fathers prayed there. Tomorrow, in the shadow of its magnificent portal, security detector machines will be set up to make sure Minnelli's wedding guests are not smuggling in cameras. Minnelli and Gest are worried that someone will try to earn a few bucks by sneaking a picture of them at the altar, thereby compromising the £400,000 exclusive deal they are reported to have made with OK! magazine.

The money is earmarked to offset the estimated £2 million cost of the wedding. Security alone is accounting for nearly £200,000 and the catering company is being paid more than £520 per head to feed champagne, caviar and other delicacies to more than 400 guests.

Of course, no one suspects for a moment that people such as Catherine Zeta Jones, her husband Michael Douglas, Sir Elton John, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Liam Neeson, Michael Jackson, Mia Farrow or any of the other A-list celebrities would dream of spoiling the OK! deal with a stolen snap.

Nor, indeed, would such distinguished figures as Claudia Cardinale, Robert Wagner, Gina Lollobrigida, Donny Osmond, Phyllis Diller, Jill St John, Petula Clark, former EastEnder Martine McCutcheon, Dudley Moore - attending despite being seriously ill with progressive supranuclear palsy - and the Doobie Brothers. But at 55, and after a long career in showbiz, Minnelli has learned to err on the side of caution.

If only this principle had applied throughout. Witness her choice of matron of honour, Elizabeth Taylor. There is a certain recklessness, surely, in being guided to the altar by a friend who has made the trip herself no fewer than eight times with seven husbands.

And what are we to make of Gest's best man, the irretrievably altered Michael Jackson. Jackson's legendary stamina will be tested to the full tomorrow - he's also giving the bride away.

And what a bride she will be. Natalie Cole will serenade the happy couple, singing Unforgettable as they walk down the aisle. (Whitney Houston had been due to sing The Greatest Love Of All, but is too busy recording a new CD in Florida - at which disappointment Minnelli burst into tears, according to the New York Daily News.)

The bride will wear a dress that has become one of America's bestkept secrets, a creation by veteran fashion designer Bob Mackie. He is a favourite of Cher and Diana Ross, and has said he was "deeply humbled" by the opportunity to create Minnelli's wedding gown, but he is not letting anyone near it.

It is said to be white and classically influenced. But apart from the fact that Mackie has recently drawn inspiration from

The Lion King and Cats, there are no further clues. Minnelli has told her 16 bridesmaids to wear what they like - as long as it is black.

There will be those, no doubt, who will detect a hint of tackiness about the whole affair, but the quintessential romance that underpins it should not be forgotten. Gest, 48, is an oldfashioned sort who has said he loves Minnelli so much he would sacrifice his life for her. Why, on a recent edition of the Today Show he revealed that when they first met he encouraged her to diet away 94lb.

The wedding takes place a short walk from Ground Zero and friends of the couple say it is hoped it will bring a little cheer to a city that has suffered so much. There can be little doubt of that.