RIYADH, 10 June 2007 — When celebrities get married they often employ extreme measures to keep the paparazzi and the eyes of the world out of their personal celebration. When Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston got hitched in 2000 they famously kept the world guessing as to the date and location.

But when Saudi movie director Haifaa Al-Mansour tied the knot with American Bradley Neimann in Dhahran on May 24, she didn’t go to such extremes to keep out the prying lenses of the paparazzi. In fact, the local media reported that she did just the opposite to promote her marriage, including the commissioning of an exclusive full spread in Sayidaty magazine, a sister publication to Arab News, and creating a website about the event.

“The whole thing was excellently arranged and choreographed,” gushed the well-known Bahraini blogger Mahmood Al-Yousif on his blog.

Reports in the media say the director of “Women Without Shadows,” a film about the strict interpretation of how women should dress that received accolades locally and internationally, carefully supervised her entire wedding ceremony, beginning to end. She came up with the idea of driving herself in on a golf cart, an apparent riff on the much-ballyhooed issue regarding women’s ban on driving in the Kingdom.

“I came out with many ideas and finally I decided to drive a car,” said Haifaa to Sayidaty. “This is a message that I send to Saudi women.”

After pulling up to her father in the golf cart, her father gave her away to Neimann, who adopted Islam and works at the US Consulate in Dhahran. Neimann has reportedly adopted the name Abdul Hakeem.

The recently appointed US Ambassador Ford Fraker and his wife attended the ceremony.

The newlyweds are spending their honeymoon in Italy. Haifaa is the third member of her family to marry a foreigner. Her sister Hana married a British man some 18 years ago, and her sister Hind married an American professor three years ago.

Haifaa is the daughter of the famous Saudi poet Abdul Rahman Al-Mansour and has 11 siblings. In addition to “Women Without Shadows,” Haifaa has also directed “Who?”, “The Bitter Journey” and “I and the Other.” She is currently hosting a show on LBC called “More Than a Woman.”