Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas will appear at the high court in London this month to give evidence in their claim against Hello! magazine for publishing sneak photos of their wedding.

Their appearance at the hearing, which starts on January 27, is expected to create one of the biggest media scrums ever seen at the law courts in the Strand.

The couple are suing the magazine for millions of pounds for publishing unauthorised photographs of their wedding at the Plaza Hotel in New York in November 2000.

They have already won an appeal court ruling in their favour which is seen as a landmark judgment in the development of a right to privacy in English law.

Michael Tugendhat, their QC, told the vice-chancellor, Sir Andrew Morritt, at a preliminary hearing yesterday that they would be present for the trial.

The pair signed a £1m deal with OK! Magazine for exclusive pictures of their £1.2m wedding, but OK!'s arch-rival Hello! snapped surreptitious photos despite tight security.

When the couple learned that Hello! planned to hit the news stands with a "spoiler" three days before OK!, they won a high court injunction to stop publication. But the injunction was lifted by the court of appeal in time for both magazines to appear on the same day.

The appeal court judges said the fact that the couple had sought to exploit their privacy rights commercially meant they should not be entitled to an injunction. But the judges said they had arguable claims for damages for breach of their privacy rights.

One of the appeal judges, Lord Justice Sedley, said: "We have reached a point at which it can be said with confidence that the law recognises and will appropriately protect a right of personal privacy."

The couple are suing for breach of confidence, but will have to fall back on privacy rights unless they can show that the pictures were obtained through someone who owed them a duty of confidence.

If they succeed, the appeal court judges said, the damages could be "enormous."

The couple claim that their privacy has been violated, causing them stress and loss of income from syndication rights.

They will say their professional careers had been damaged because the photographs published by Hello! were of poor quality. They had the right of prior approval over the pictures published by OK!

However, since the appeal court ruling in their case, judges have shown some reluctance to follow Lord Justice Sedley's nudge and develop a right of privacy under the human rights act. The House of Lords is to consider the issue this year in a case brought by a mother and son who say their privacy rights were violated by a strip search while visiting a relative in prison.

In that case the appeal court said a right to privacy should not be developed by stealth, but should be left to parliament.