Mayor Plans Valentine’s Day Wedding

Mayor Richard Riordan will marry longtime friend Nancy Daly on Valentine’s Day at a small ceremony in Sun Valley, Idaho.

“She’s the most beautiful woman, spiritually, intellectually and physically, that I have ever known,” Riordan said Tuesday after a gossip column disclosed the couple’s marriage plans. “Why she picked me, only she can say.”

Daly was not immediately available for comment, but people close to the city’s soon-to-be first couple said plans for a wedding have been in the works for some time.

Riordan, 67, and Daly, 55, have been a couple throughout the mayor’s tenure. Daly joined the mayor for his first inauguration, strolling arm in arm with him to City Hall. Since then, they have been a fixture at city and social events.

In particular, the two have joined forces on causes involving children’s welfare.

“We’ve been very, very close,” Riordan said. “We have a strong common interest in children and in looking out for their future.”

Daly previously was married for 30 years to Warner Bros. chief Robert Daly. They have a daughter and two sons.

Riordan, whose first marriage was annulled by the Roman Catholic Church, separated from his second wife, Jill, in the late 1980s. He and Daly began dating soon after. For years, however, they deflected questions about marriage. As recently as two weeks ago, when rumors of their possible wedding began to circulate, Riordan declined to confirm or deny them.

During his first marriage, Riordan and his wife had a son and four daughters.

Their son died in a scuba-diving accident, and one daughter died of an eating disorder. He has one granddaughter, Nicole, whose antics at the mayor’s second inaugural made her a favorite of the crowd.

Like Riordan, Daly is a Catholic, but because of their divorces they will not be married in the church. After the ceremony, they no longer will be able to receive certain sacraments, including Holy Communion, which the mayor said he will regret.

Nevertheless, the mayor said, “We’ll be very active in the church. I look forward to continuing to work with the church, and I’ve talked to Cardinal [Roger M.] Mahony about that.”