Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes‘ wedding photographer has candidly revealed what it was really like to shoot the event.

The celebrity couple tied the knot at Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano, Italy, in November 2006 in front of a star-studded guest list.

There to capture their nuptials on camera was Robert Evans who took about 5,000 snaps of the A-list occasion.

He dished that the relationship between Cruise and Holmes ‘seemed very real and natural’ before expressing the pitfalls of nondisclosure agreements.

For years, Cruise and Holmes were deemed one of Hollywood’s biggest couples.

The Mission Impossible star infamously declared his love for his fellow actress, who was 16 years his junior, while jumping on a sofa during an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show.

And, after he proposed at the Eiffel Tower, the couple walked down the aisle in a Scientologist ceremony just months after welcoming daughter Suri.

The nuptials, which included a fireworks display over the 15th century castle, reportedly cost more than $3 million, according to E! News. 

The couple’s photographer, who also shot Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt’s ceremony in 2000, has now spoken to Yahoo Entertainment about how the ‘wedding of the century’ unfolded.

Speaking about the build up to the event, Evans said that he was asked to submit his previous works for consideration – along with a whole host of other photographers – before he was hired by a very enthusiastic Cruise. 

‘When I met him for the first time, he was very excited to meet me. It was around the time he was kind of getting the bad press for the couch-jumping thing. But he was super-nice. 

‘He was like: “I’m so happy to meet you! When I saw your book, I was like: That’s my guy! That’s my guy!” He was excited about it.

‘I’m meeting Tom Cruise for the first time, this is within the first minute of us meeting, and I was like… “Thank you?” I’m not great with compliments.’ 

Evans and a fellow photographer flew to the location in Rome and stayed at the hotel next door to the newlyweds-to-be.

He covered two days of events prior to the official ceremony before 150 guests, including the likes of Jennifer Lopez, David and Victoria Beckham, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, descended on the event.

But he said that the ‘wow factor’ of the impressive list of guests soon wore off, admitting that he did not even remember some of them being there.

Discussing the relationship between Cruise and Holmes, Evans told the publication: ‘It seemed very real and natural to me. They just seemed like they were having a great time and they were in love. 

‘Obviously I’m not thinking about that [while I’m working], but you are observing and you see it. But then the pictures reflect it. I guess they’re actors. They could have been faking it. But I just go there and do my job and shoot what I see.’

Evans usually takes a batch of up to 5,000 photographs at events such as the Cruise and Holmes wedding – but said that many of the more touching and intimate photos are never shared.

Revealing what he has learnt from being ‘on the inside’ of such A-list events, Evans said that ‘the stuff that gets reported after is usually not very accurate. People are speculating because they don’t know the truth.’ 

He added that because of nondisclosure agreements, ‘obviously, you can’t tell anybody that the flowers were pink or the cake was this, so they all speculate, and a lot of stuff you hear, that’s not what happened. 

‘It gives a little insight into what it must be like to be a celebrity and having no privacy. Yes, I realize that’s the job that they chose, but that’s the con that goes with the pro.’

But the partnership between Cruise, who had been married twice before, and Holmes’ was not set to last as the pair split just five years later.

The relationship had slowly crumbled, with sources claiming Holmes felt intimidated by the Church of Scientology and its influence before she filed for divorce in 2012.

The fallout of the bitter split has led Suri, who is now 17, to become estranged from her father, with the actress gaining ‘sole custody’ of her daughter in the wake of the divorce.