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The mere possibility that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie might want to make their orphan-sharing plan a little more official at George Clooney's (that guy again?) villa on Italy's Lake Como has sent the celebrity-stalking press scouring the nearby town for evidence of the supposedly impending, super-secret nuptials. And while the locals are either sweetly naive or playing it coy ("We don't have any bookings under their or their agents' names, maybe because it will be an intimate celebration," Reuters reports a luxury hotel flack as saying, as if the couple wouldn't check in under names like "Rodney Washboard" and "Elvira Hotpants"), reporters find themselves killing time in hopes of hitting the jackpot:

The lights were out and some of the window shutters closed, and only brand new metal screens protecting the adjacent park against nosy onlookers hinted that something was in the works.

Small groups of people with notebooks and television cameras trotted along the country lanes connecting Cernobbio and Laglio, looking slightly lost, while some journalists cruised the lake on motorboats to get a better view of Clooney's summer home

A janitor at the villa said Clooney was not there and that he didn't know of any wedding.

Some speculate that local tourism operators invented the wedding rumors to fill up hotel rooms. But three elderly men having an early glass of wine in a bar down the road were convinced there was more to it.

"They are cleaning the village and tidying up everything, something is going to happen," said Andrea, who declined to give his surname.

"I haven't been invited anyway. Have you?" his friend Antonio asked him, prompting a round of laughter in the bar.

Shortly after the roar of laughter ebbed, resident cut-up Antonio ignited another round of guffaws by showing his mastery of American popular culture, musing that his missing invitation must have gone out in the same batch as Jennifer Aniston's.