Wedding pictures a £2m gift for Joan

Joan Collins was today finalising details of a seven-figure deal which should - for love and money - make her wedding day one of the happiest of her life.

Collins' imminent wedding has seen two of the biggest showbiz magazines in the UK and US involved in a vicious fight for the rights to cover it. But Joan and fiancee Percy Gibson are the real winners with a possible £2 million payday.

People magazine in the US had been trying to outbid OK! magazine in the UK for the right to cover the big day. The British magazine eventually won with a £375,000 deal. Now People is believed to have bought second rights for a further £200,000.

On top of that, the worldwide syndication of the pictures outside the two magazines will net an the couple around £1.5 million.

The speculation about the date of the wedding continued today. Collins and Gibson are, it seems, determined to keep the press guessing. Collins, 68, told the Standard this morning that she would wed her 36-year-old lover today. However, two hours later the actress changed her mind. "I was kidding," she announced. I'm getting married on Sunday."

The couple told their 175 guests only two days ago to attend a party at Claridges at 5pm this Sunday.

Initial reports suggested that Miss Collins's children Tara, 38, Sacha, 36, and Katy, 29, were unhappy at the news that their mother was to marry her new young lover. Miss Collins, who has been married and divorced four times, had been going out with Mr Gibson for just 12 weeks when he proposed to her last May.

But the star's publicist, Stella Wilson, said: "All three children are going to the wedding and are delighted about it. "

But Collins' sister Jackie has confirmed that she will not be attending the wedding. But she insists that it is not because she has fallen out with her 68-year-old sister. Writer Jackie, 62, says that she will be hard at work trying to finish Deadly Embrace, her 22nd book, in her Hollywood home.

What Miss Collins will wear is secret. But sources say Dynasty dressmaker Nolan Miller has designed her a pink silk dress. The groom will wear a clan Monaghan kilt and bride and groom will exchange rings made by Fulham Road jeweller Theo Fennell.