A somber group of friends and family gathered in a small New York town today to bid a final farewell to Tony Award-winning actress Natasha Richardson.

Her husband Liam Neeson, dressed in a dark suit and sunglasses, was at the head of the casket as he and five other pallbearers carried his wife's coffin into St. Peter's Episcopal Church, near the home where the two married in 1994.

He and Richardson's mother, actress Vanessa Redgrave, waved to the dozens of reporters crowded behind a police barricade on the dirt road leading to the tiny white church. The grieving family -- including the couple's two sons, Micheal, 13, and Daniel, 12 -- then paused to allow the media to photograph them in front of church before the service.

Mourners, including fellow actors Ralph Fiennes, Alan Rickman, Laura Linney, Uma Thurman and Timothy Dalton, joined the family at a graveside service under a large green tent. The 45-year-old actress was buried in a nearby cemetery about 80 miles north of New York City. She was laid to rest near the grave of her maternal grandmother, actress Rachel Kempson, who died while visiting her Richardson and Neeson at their home in nearby Millbrook in 2003. Neeson and the Redgrave family, including Richardson's sister, actress Joely Richardson, visited Kempson's grave after the burial.

Richardson died Wednesday after falling while skiing Monday at the Mont Tremblant resort in the Canadian province of Quebec. The New York City medical examiner's office said Richardson suffered from an epidural hematoma, which causes bleeding between the skull and the brain's covering.

Natasha Richardson