By Mark Shanahan, Globe Staff, 4/24/2004

When her relationship with Jack Welch became public, Suzy Wetlaufer liked to tell people it was a one-day story.

''I still have friends who tease me about that,'' she said this week. ''They say, `Suzy, it's only a one-day story.'''

But two years later, the May-December romance between Welch, the legendary former CEO, and Wetlaufer, the onetime editor of the Harvard Business Review, continues to be grist for the gossip mill. And their wedding today, before 75 friends and family members at the Park Street Church on Beacon Hill, is unlikely to change that.

Asked why a Danish paper would assign a reporter to write about the wedding, Wetlaufer sighed. ''There's this funny phenomenon with celebrities,'' she said. ''And Jack is perhaps the most well-known businessman in the world.''

But there is also a scandalous soap-opera quality to the relationship that invites attention. Never mind that Welch was married and 24 years her senior when they fell in love in 2001, and that Wetlaufer was a journalist writing a story about the retired General Electric executive at the time. In a matter of months, Welch's second wife, Jane Beasley Welch, had filed for divorce, and Wetlaufer was out as editor in chief of the prestigious Harvard Business Review.

Ever since, even the couple's most unremarkable comings and goings - Jack and Suzy eat dinner, Jack and Suzy take in a ballgame - have been chronicled in gossip columns across the country. For Welch, such scrutiny is nothing new. The public face of a multinational corporation for two decades, ''Neutron Jack'' is accustomed to prurient press.

''In recent years, CEOs have become very visible, and in some cases better known than the products their companies produce,'' said Rakesh Khurana, an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School who's written on op-ed pages about the cult of charismatic CEOs. ''In the case of Jack Welch, the guy has become a brand unto himself.''

But for Wetlaufer, whose four children from her first marriage range in age from 9 to 15, the attention was unwelcome. The Harvard MBA, now 44, was portrayed as a party girl with a penchant for befriending powerful men, including Nestle CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe and Ford's former chief Jacques Nasser. She and Welch stayed mostly mum about their affair but did enlist a high-powered Boston lawyer, Bob Popeo, and a public relations pro, Karen Schwartzman, whose specialty is ''reputation management.''

''I was utterly unprepared for what happened, but over time you just learn not to let it bother you,'' Wetlaufer said this week. ''It's fair to say, though, that Jack is better at that than I am.''

The couple eventually moved in together and, not long after Welch's divorce from Beasley last summer, got engaged. (Welch, the story goes, proposed not once, but twice, and got the same ecstatic ''yes'' both times.)

The details of his divorce were never disclosed, but with a fortune estimated at $900 million and no prenuptial agreement to protect him, it's safe to assume Welch paid a high price to be with Wetlaufer. All that aside, the two sound like typical newlyweds.

''What do I want to say? I just love him more every day,'' Wetlaufer said sweetly. ''It's like when you have a baby and you think you can't possibly love another person more without bursting into flames, and the next day you do.''

Before family and friends, the two are getting married today at the Congregational church where they attend services each Sunday. (A devout Christian, Wetlaufer says her faith ''governs all of my choices.'') The reception, featuring a menu by chef Michael Schlow and an R&B band called Flipside, will be held at the couple's Beacon Street townhouse. Welch and Wetlaufer have traveled extensively - to Australia, Europe, and Iceland - but they won't reveal where they're spending their weeklong honeymoon. ''Somewhere warm,'' Wetlaufer said.

And when they return, it's back to work. Not long ago, the couple received a reported $4 million advance from HarperCollins to write ''Winning,'' which is optimistically described by the publisher as ''the ultimate business how-to book.'' The plan, at least, is to finish writing by the fall, ship the book to stores next spring, then crisscross the country promoting their labor of love for up to a year.

''Thinking two years out is about all I can do,'' Wetlaufer said. ''But we're staying in Boston. We love Boston.''

So any thought that Jack Welch and Suzy Wetlaufer might fade from view once they are married, forget it. It's not going to happen.

This story ran on page E1 of the Boston Globe on 4/24/2004.

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