Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes might be halted in their plans to marry at their reported chosen location in Italy next week.

The couple have apparently picked Castello Odescalchi in the small lakeside town of Bracciano, just north of Rome but the mayor of the town, Patrizia Riccioni has said they will not be able to hold their planned civil ceremony because the relavant paperwork has been received: “I don’t think it will be legal - there are papers and documents we certainly don’t have.”

And they can’t marry in the Catholic church to appease Katie’s family because of Tom’s previous divorces (although his split from ex-wife Nicole Kidman was considered an annulment ahead of her marriage to Keith Urban). A spokesperson for the town’s priest said: “Cruise is divorced. Even if he were not, another fundamental requirement would be missing - the authorisation of the parish.”

Tom and Katie are rumoured to be planning to marry at the castle in a three day event starting next Thursday and including a civil service and a Scientology blessing.