Rooney met his wife, Coleen Rooney (née McLoughlin), while both were at secondary school.[271] They married on 12 June 2008 after six years of dating, during which Rooney admitted to soliciting prostitutes in Liverpool in 2004. "I was young and stupid. It was at a time when I was very young and immature and before I had settled down with Coleen."[272] He has a tattoo of the words "Just Enough Education to Perform", the title of an album by his favourite band, the Stereophonics; Coleen arranged for the group to play at their wedding reception.[273] The wedding ran into some controversy with the Catholic Church. The couple held a religious ceremony at the Abbey of Cervara, a converted monastery near Genoa, despite being warned by the local bishop's office against the plan. The bishop's office told the Rooneys that La Cervara is deconsecrated and not suitable for a wedding. It suggested a different church, five miles away. Nevertheless, the couple ignored the advice and Father Edward Quinn, their local Catholic priest from Croxteth, presided over the ceremony.[274]
In April 2006, Rooney was awarded £100,000 in libel damages from tabloids The Sun and News of the World, who had claimed that he had assaulted Coleen in a nightclub. Rooney donated the money to charity.[275]