NEW YORK, Jan 20 (AFP) - Developer and reality TV mogul Donald Trump was to wed model Melania Knauss this week at his lavish Florida mansion, hoping to get third-time lucky.
The carefully if curiously coiffed Trump, 58, plans to tie the knot with his companion of six years, a curvaceous Slovenian-Austrian beauty, 34, who keeps busy on the New York social scene.
Some 500 guests are expected to attend the big event at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, and Knauss was expected to don a spectacular gown in the 100,000-200,000 dollar price range.
Trump, who has made, lost and remade fortunes in real estate and become a quirky television fixture with his "Apprentice" reality TV series, is a fabled pioneer in the field of self-promotion. He did, however, turn down an offer by NBC to broadcast the nuptuals live.
The bombastic New Yorker previously was wed to Ivana Trump, with whom he had two sons and a daughter, and Marla Maples, with whom he has a daughter.
The future Mrs. Trump sports a 15 carat engagement ring worth some 1.5 million dollars.
01/20/2005 18:29 GMT - AFP