Kim and Kanye to wed in France and party in Italy

Hip hop star Kanye West and reality TV celebrity Kim Kardashian are to marry in a chateau near Paris next Saturday, Italian media reported, before heading to Florence where their party plans have raised some eyebrows.

Some 1,600 guests have been invited to the Chateau d’Usse, a Renaissance dwelling southwest of Paris, for the May 24 wedding ceremony, Florence newspaper la Nazione reported.

From there the celebrity pair and their guests will head to the Italian city, where they have rented the Forte Belvedere -- a 16th-century fortress -- for their wedding party.

Earlier reports had said the pair would wed in Florence.

A spokesman for Florence city hall said this week the rental for the fortress built by the Medici family and now used as an exhibitions venue -- a reported 300,000 euros ($411,000) -- would go to funding city projects.

But some locals are unhappy about the couple’s takeover of one of Florence’s most beautiful monuments.

Passions were further inflamed by the renting-out of the Cappellone degli Spagnoli, a chapel with 14th-century frescoes, for a dinner for JP Morgan bank.

Achille Totaro, an opposition candidate in upcoming local elections, said it amounted to "a sell-off of Florence’s monuments", while the anti-establishment Five Star Movement called for "greater respect for our city’s treasures".