French President Nicolas Sarkozy married former model Carla Bruni in a small ceremony today at the presidential Elysee Palace, the mayor who performed the ceremony said.

Sarkozy, 53, and Bruni, 40, have had a whirlwind courtship: They married less than three months after they reportedly first met, and less than four months after Sarkozy divorced his second wife, Cecilia.

“The bride wore white; she was ravishing, as usual,” Francois Lebel, mayor of Paris’ eighth arrondissement, or neighborhood, told Europe-1 radio. “The groom wasn’t bad either.”

It was a historic occasion, “the first time in the history of the Republic that a president has gotten married in office,” as Lebel said.

About 20 people attended the ceremony, he said. Lebel called it “a moment of family intimacy for the young newlyweds, of great simplicity and apparently a lot of affection between the spouses.”

“I wished them a lot of happiness,” he said.

Under French law, couples must tie the knot before a mayor to make their union official.

Sarkozy could not devote the entire day to celebrations: He was busy with a crisis in Chad, the former French colony in central Africa. As rebels penetrated Chad’s capital, Sarkozy called a meeting at the Elysee Palace and spoke by telephone with Chad’s president.

Sarkozy’s openness about his private life has surprised many French, accustomed to presidents who keep their love lives under wraps. At a news conference in January, Sarkozy revealed that the relationship was “serious” and hinted that wedding plans were in the works. But he refused to reveal the date for a wedding, saying just that France might only learn about the nuptials once they had already taken place.

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