By Scott D. Pierce

| The Salt Lake Tribune

Pictures of Elizabeth Smart’s wedding celebration are being published in People Magazine and the National Enquirer.

She was planning on the former; the latter comes as a rather unpleasant surprise.

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According to Smart family spokesman Chris Thomas, Elizabeth "decided that it would be in her best interest and her family’s best interest to cooperate with somebody to tell the story in a way that she wanted it to be told." People reporters and photographers were at the wedding; National Enquirer photographers were hiding nearby with long-lens cameras.

"It came as quite a surprise that the Enquirer had images and the story," Thomas said. "In light of that, it looks like it was a good decision [to cooperate with People] because, otherwise, the National Enquirer would be the one telling her wedding story."

People is celebrating the wedding of Smart and Matthew Gilmour in the edition that hits stands on Friday — even putting the blushing bride before New York Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin.

Smart gets most of the cover; Lin gets a much-smaller photo in the upper-left corner.

Attired in her wedding dress, a flower in her hair and a bouquet in her hands, Smart smiles broadly while the magazine proclaims "Dream Wedding!" and "Happy at Last! The kidnap survivor shares all the details of her big day in Hawaii."

Details of any financial arrangement with the magazine were not revealed.

According to Thomas, Smart decided to put the wedding together quickly — it was planned and pulled off in less than two weeks — and invite People along because she was taken aback by the media firestorm ignited when she announced her engagement.

"She knew it would be a story, but didn’t anticipate it being as big a story as it was," Thomas said. "I had 200-plus media calls that day, and it became quite intrusive. There were media that contacted practically every member of her family and extended family and his family and even resorted to some questionable tactics to tell the story.

"And once the dust cleared from that, she recognized that was going to be very difficult if not impossible to have a wedding here without distraction. And as she thought about it more, she determined that the only way to have what every woman wants — which is a wedding with close family and friends — was to get out of Dodge."

The story of Smart’s 2002 kidnapping, when she was just 14, and her return nine months later made international headlines. She testified against her kidnapper, Brian David Mitchell, at his 2010 trial — he was convicted and sentenced to two life sentences — and has become an advocate for missing children and a contributor to ABC News.

While "everything came together without a hitch" for the wedding, it was a complicated process. Thomas said vendors had to sign nondisclosure agreements, and credited "terrific partners" in the Polynesian Cultural Center and Turtle Bay Resorts for making the wedding — originally scheduled for this summer — come together so quickly.

The couple married in the Laie Hawaii Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the morning of Saturday, Feb. 18, followed by an afternoon reception and an evening luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center.

"At the end of the night, Elizabeth was beaming and said that it couldn’t have gone better," Thomas said. "It was something that she hoped for and it came true."

spierce@sltrib.com