Playboy's Hugh Hefner and 'runaway bride' set to wed

Hugh Hefner and his fiancee, Playboy Playmate Crystal Harris, arrive at the opening night gala of the 2011 TCM Classic Film Festival featuring a screening of a restoration of 'An American In Paris' in Hollywood, California April 28, 2011.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The runaway bride who left Playboy founder Hugh Hefner out in the cold days before their planned wedding in 2011 said on Monday that she is finally ready to tie the knot with the octogenarian publisher on New Year's Eve.

"Today is the day I become Mrs. Hugh Hefner," Crystal Harris, 26, wrote on Twitter on Monday after changing her name to "Crystal Hefner" on the micro-blogging site. "Feeling very happy, lucky, and blessed."

Hefner, 86, and Harris reunited earlier this year after the blonde Playmate jettisoned the adult entertainment mogul in what was called a "change of heart" five days before a lavish June 2011 wedding before 300 guests.

Harris hinted at a low-key ceremony this time around, tweeting a picture of a room at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles flush with an arch of white and pink flowers, and two dozen white chairs aligned for the ceremony.

Hefner himself was silent on Twitter and the exact timing of Monday's wedding ceremony was not known.

Harris, who earned a psychology degree, was Playboy magazine's Miss December 2009 and appeared on the July 2011 cover of the adult magazine with a "runaway bride" sticker covering her bottom half.

The San Diego native born to British parents said she asked for Christmas ornaments at her pre-Christmas bridal shower to help decorate Hefner's famed mansion.

"I was deciding what kind of shower I wanted, and I thought I didn't really want a lingerie shower, since I have more than enough lingerie," Harris told Us Weekly magazine of the shower.

Hefner, founder of the Playboy adult entertainment empire, has been married twice before. He and his second wife Kimberley Conrad, also a former Playmate, divorced in 2010 after a lengthy separation. His first marriage to Mildred Williams ended in divorce in 1959. He has two children from each marriage. (Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Cynthia Osterman)