Nassau’s Mount Horeb Church was festooned with pink peonies, roses, stargazers and white calla lilies. Smith’s mahogany casket was covered with a rhinestone-studded pink blanket trimmed with flowing marabou tassels and ribbons.

The hundred or so mourners, many of whom wore black and pink ribbons, included Guns N’ Roses rocker Slash and Alex Goen, the chief executive of diet company TrimSpa, which Smith endorsed. Country singer Joe Nichols sang I’ll Wait For You and Dolly Parton’s On the Wings of a Dove, said to have been Smith’s favourite country song.

Her close friends Patrik Simpson and Pol Atteu, who designed her handcrafted dress, were also present, but the star’s five-month-old daughter Dannielynn stayed at home.

Around 30 friends and family members attended the intimate graveside service that followed. Each reportedly laid a pink and a red rose on the coffin to symbolise Smith and 20-year-old Daniel, who died in September just three days after Dannielynn was born.

They had also been asked to write a personal note to the star on pink heart-shaped paper and drop it into the grave.

Smith’s partner Howard Stern and her ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead, who are embroiled in a legal battle over who fathered her daughter, apparently shook hands and both wept before the funeral started. Birkhead sat behind Stern in the second row. A picture of Smith was looking her most glamorous was displayed next to the coffin.


Family await release of Anna’s body - Mar 1 2007
Anna Nicole Smith’s friends and family awaited the release of her body today, as they planned for the starlet’s funeral in the Bahamas after weeks of legal wrangling over her remains.

A horde of reporters and onlookers gathered outside the Broward County medical examiner’s office, where the star’s body has remained refrigerated since her February 8 death in a hotel room at age 39.

It wasn’t known when her body would be released, but Richard Milstein, the court-appointed advocate for Anna Nicole’s five-month-old daughter Dannielynn, has said the funeral would be tomorrow in the Bahamas.

The former model will be buried in a custom-made gown next to her 20-year-old son Daniel following an "over the top" memorial service, said a friend.

The service, with about 300 guests at an undisclosed church, will feature lots of pink flowers, her favourite colour, and singing from a well-known performer whose name organisers weren’t ready to disclose, said the friend, Patrik Simpson of Beverly Hills, California.

"It will be a very beautiful, Anna Nicole send-off," he said last night. "Of course it will be over the top because it’s Anna Nicole."

The burial at Lakeview Memorial Gardens & Mausoleums will be more intimate, with about 30 people, he said.

The star’s death set off a battle over her burial and for custody of Dannielynn between her partner Howard Stern, her estranged mother Virgie Arthur, and ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead.