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Friday, 2 March 2007

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Anna Nicole's memorial will be 'over the top'

Flamboyant service for Anna Nicole

Anna Nicole Smith will be remembered Friday in the Bahamas in a service befitting her flamboyant life.

"It will be a very beautiful Anna Nicole send-off," Patrik Simpson, a friend of Smith who is helping to organize the memorial, told the Associated Press on Wednesday. "Of course it will be over the top because it's Anna Nicole."

About 300 guests will attend the service at a church filled with pink flowers – her favorite color – and a well-known but as-yet undisclosed singer will perform, Simpson said.

Simpson's partner, Pol Atteu, who designed more than a dozen dresses for Smith, created the custom gown in which she will be buried in a "very elegant" casket, Simpson added.

Simpson, 38, a Beverly Hills-based model talent scout, said the three parties who had battled over custody of Smith's body – Howard K. Stern, Larry Birkhead and her mother, Virgie Arthur – each had to submit a guest list of up to 100 people.

Only about 30 people will attend the more private burial at Lakeview Memorial Gardens & Mausoleums, he said.

The Friday burial only got the final green light on Wednesday, when a Florida court rejected an appeal by Virgie Arthur, to gain custody of her daughter's body.

Florida Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin last week granted custody of Smith's body to Richard Milstein, the court-appointed advocate for Smith's 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn. Arthur had contested the ruling, saying she wanted to bury her daughter in their home state of Texas.

After the appeals court rejected Arthur's bid Wednesday, Milstein said in a statement that the funeral was set for Friday, the Associated Press reports.

Arthur's lawyer, Tom Pirtle, told the AP Wednesday night that Arthur would not challenge the court's decision. "It's going to be difficult to appeal the ruling, so we're not going to appeal," he said.

The appellate court said in its ruling that Smith's "last ascertainable wish" was to be buried next to her son Daniel, who died in the Bahamas in September at age 20.

Smith died in Florida on Feb. 8 at age 39. A cause of death has not yet been determined.