Seattle ? Security leading up to the Friday night wedding of Mary Kay Letourneau and her former sixth-grade student rivaled that of a top-secret government operation – from secret instructions to a hush-hush rendezvous and identity checks.

Letourneau, 43, and Vili Fualaau, 22, have been in the spotlight since she was imprisoned in 1997 for raping Fualaau. But when she was released last August, the couple – who have two daughters together – reunited.

Since then, details of their wedding have been closely guarded – except for a series of interviews by “Entertainment Tonight” and its sister TV show, “The Insider.” The shows have exclusive rights to the nuptials. Show officials said they did not pay for the wedding.

Janet Annino, ET’s co-executive producer in Washington for the wedding, said everyone had gathered by 9:30 p.m. but the ceremony had not yet begun.

“They’re running a little late. There’s a lot of commotion,” she said.

The wedding was being held at the Columbia Winery in Woodinville, about 20 miles northeast of Seattle, Annino said.

Letourneau’s teenage daughter, Mary Claire, from her earlier marriage, was on hand to serve as her maid of honor, Annino said. The couple’s two daughters, Audrey, 8, and Alexis Georgia, 7, were to be flower girls.

The couple first met when Fualaau was in the second grade. Their relationship became sexual when he was 12 and she was a 34-year-old married mother of four, a teacher at a suburban elementary school.

Letourneau was pregnant with Fualaau’s first child when she was arrested in 1997. She pleaded guilty to second-degree child rape and was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison, with all but six months suspended.

Within weeks of her release, she was caught having sex with Fualaau in her car and ordered to serve the remainder of her sentence.