Today is Prince William and Kate’s 14th wedding anniversary. Over the weekend, many British outlets (especially the Mail) published “remember when” pieces about W&K’s 2011 wedding, and most of them were positive, if not sugary. But there was this one, which was pretty amusing: “Revealed: The peculiar reason why Prince William invited FOUR former flames to watch him get married to Kate Middleton 14 years ago.” You might think that the Mail is yanking William’s chain, and maybe they are, but I actually think that this is yet another “Bachelor Bill is so desirable, he can get any woman he wants” piece. The Mail also glosses over the very real history of William dumping Kate repeatedly to date some of these women.
The guestlist is always one of the most important aspects of planning a wedding. And despite the fact there is room for 2,000 at Westminster Abbey, royal ceremonies are no different. So when Prince William invited four old flames to watch Kate Middleton walk down the aisle towards him 14 years ago, a few eyebrows were raised.
It might seem obvious that William, as the friendly and handsome heir to the throne, would have his fair share of female admirers before Kate stole his heart. But the fact that the Prince of Wales invited so many of his former partners to the grand occasion seemed to puzzle a large chunk of the public. However, it was not just William who invited his exes to the wedding. With her natural poise, it is no surprise that Kate turned heads before she landed her prince charming. Indeed, on the day William and Kate got married, at least half a dozen people in the hall had one thing in common: a past fling with one of them.
Kate invited both of her ex-boyfriends. Rupert Finch, whom she dated at St Andrews before she started seeing William, and her Marlborough friend Willem Marx, with whom she was rumoured to have had a relationship while at sixth form there. As for William, he invited his four serious former partners. This included Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, whom the prince is said to have pursued during the summer of 2004, and Arabella Musgrave, who dated him the summer before he went to St Andrews. His first girlfriend Rose Farquhar was also invited, alongside Jecca Craig, who was said to be William’s first true love and one of his closest friends.
The slew of exes were not invited so that the royal couple could awkwardly make eye contact with them as they walked down the aisle.
In fact, the reason they were all there was fundamentally due to a more peculiar upper class British tradition. Although it may seem alien to regular Britons, the Royal Family follows rules of etiquette established hundreds of years ago, which state that inviting exes is okay. The social circles of the Royal Family are small and for better or worse, exes in their society are expected to get along. Or act as if they do, anyway.
William Norwich, a special correspondent at Town and Country magazine, told The New York Times at the time: ‘I think it is one of the determining details of the upper-class species that they keep friendly with their exes, once the pain of the breakup heals. It is custom of the class. Sustaining hostilities is too down-market.’
Due to the fact that all of the exes run in the same general social circle as the royal family, there’s definitely more incentive to get along. The world of the British royals is tiny, so falling out with them can mean social suicide.
Mr Norwich added: ‘You may split up, but if you want to stay in the club, you better get along. You still want to get invited to Ascot.’
You may think that Kate probably wanted William’s exes there, since she wanted to lord it over people that she got the ring. But I doubt Kate actually wanted Jecca and Isabella there – please, if Jecca or Isabella had been more interested in William, Kate would have been jettisoned permanently circa 2005-07. Years later, I also think the wedding and the presence of William’s exes sort of shows that most aristocratic women, women with titles or money who actually moved in that social class, did not want anything to do with William. To be fair, I don’t think many of them wanted anything to do with Harry either – it was a reticence to sign up for the Windsor circus, and to put up with everything Kate had to put up with.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Prince William and Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey, London, during their wedding service.,Image: 503711186, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , New York + 1 646-329-6242 or Hamburg + 49 (0)40 530 240 5959, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: /Avalon
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- National News and Pictures. 29/04/11 The Mall in central London during the Royal Wedding of HRH Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton in London. Pictured: HRH Prince William and Catherine Middleton travel down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace after their wedding at Westminster Abbey PH: Will Oliver,Image: 503720218, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , New York + 1 646-329-6242 or Hamburg + 49 (0)40 530 240 5959, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: /Avalon
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- Prince William and Kate Middleton exchange vows at Westminster Abbey, London, during their wedding service.,Image: 503721029, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , New York + 1 646-329-6242 or Hamburg + 49 (0)40 530 240 5959, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: /Avalon
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- Prince William and his bride Kate leave Westminster Abbey, London, after their wedding.,Image: 503721139, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , New York + 1 646-329-6242 or Hamburg + 49 (0)40 530 240 5959, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: /Avalon
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- Kate Middleton during their wedding to Prince William at Westminster Abbey, London.,Image: 503722817, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , New York + 1 646-329-6242 or Hamburg + 49 (0)40 530 240 5959, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: /Avalon
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- ( cd ) Prince William and Catherine Middleton after the ceremony The wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, Westminster Abbey, London, Britain – 29 Apr 2011,Image: 503726271, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , New York + 1 646-329-6242 or Hamburg + 49 (0)40 530 240 5959, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: /Avalon
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- Britain’s Prince William (R) helps his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, to leave the 1902 State Landau carriage as they arrive at Buckingham Palace after their wedding in Westminster Abbey in central London April 29, 2011. Prince William married his fiancee, Kate Middleton, in Westminster Abbey on Friday. (ROYAL WEDDING/PROCESSION),Image: 503734424, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , New York + 1 646-329-6242 or Hamburg + 49 (0)40 530 240 5959, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: /Avalon
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- Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton, who has been given the title of The Duchess of Cambridge, wave to the crowd from the balcony of Buckingham Palace, London, following their wedding at Westminster Abbey.,Image: 503747929, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , New York + 1 646-329-6242 or Hamburg + 49 (0)40 530 240 5959, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: /Avalon
Oooh, i think the rats are poking the bear! About time.
Interesting choice of pictures as well, McButtons with a smug smile in virtually every one. Bulliam baring smiling.
It shows everything you need to know abut the dynamic of their relationship doesn’t it?
According to Harry in Spare, William was so hungover he reeked of rum, so I’d cut him some slack on not looking super happy even on his wedding day!
Guess he’s reverted back to form: he has to be drunk (like a functioning alcoholic) to be around her. Nothing changed, obviously.
Guess I’d never be a good “aristo”; I’d never want to marry someone who had to be drunk to follow through.
Chelsea Davy and Cressida Bonas were at Harry and Meghan’s wedding. I think it’s just a matter of rich people inviting other rich people as a social nicety.
Probably, but kkkate got the cccrown so? She still wins. In her world. She wanted the crown no matter what.She got it. She wins.
She is newly edited or retouched in all of these photos. They are going back and editing photos I see. Her truest form is number 3. Her real teeth are showing.
William looks so much like his cousin Freddy Kent.
Still, her make up was tragic that day. The Middleton eyeliner, the blush placement. Was her make up done by Carole?
From what I remember reading, she had Bobbi Brown do her makeup but didn’t like the results, so she wiped it off and redid it herself. Bobbi’s makeup styling usually favors a more fresh faced, natural look.
I think she still had her permanent eyeliner then. She, Carole and Pippa had very heavy lines around their eyes for a while.
Exes at a wedding. Is this all they have? I thought I read somewhere that Peg was still drunk at the wedding? Is this all they have for the lazy “happy” couple on their anniversary? With a few sugary articles and then this? It seems to me that it would be a bad day for Peg that the ones he really wanted didn’t want the same. He had to settle for his stalker.
Yup he was drunk as a skunk. Harry wrote about his wedding drunkenness in Spare and you can see Willie’s regret because he refused to look at Lazy as she walked down the aisle. I do wonder if Willie’s drunkenness made him rationalise it to himself that the marriage wasn’t true for him. He wasn’t sober enough to recite his vows, so what he felt for Lazy was only fine under a drunken haze.
I think this revelation in Spare pissed off the Middletons. They had an unwilling groom whom they had trapped to marry their daughter. There was not much love in that union from the very beginning, and it shows with each passing year.
It was such a damp squib of a wedding. A very cold affair.
There is not a single emotional moment, and that is really something, for a wedding.
I was waiting for Harry to reach over and plonk Meghan onto his lap, when the minister was talking. The two weddings could not be more diametrically opposed if they tried, and both are royal weddings.
Didn’t Harry write that William was drunk the night before, so he might have been still tipsy but he wasn’t obviously plastered during the wedding.
I always thought she had a distinct “cat got the mouse” smile the whole day.
Serious hangover!
Yeah, Lazy and mother were so very pleased they pulled it! A big fuck you to those who mocked her background and “Doors to Manual”.
‘Sustaining hostilities is too down-market.’
Unless it’s your own brother?
This is great, look at super desirable FK Willy who had a ton of serious relationship before during and after marrying Kate only none of them wanted to deal with him permanently because he’s that bad and his family will make your life a living hell if you marry in.
Yeah, that’s what caught my eye too. It also sounds very snobbish toward “regular Britons”.
I know, that struck me, too. The “upper class species” are people, just like everybody else. They might not outright snub someone they don’t like (as they have H&M), but they’ll invite them to an event and seat them behind a pillar or in a section that everyone knows is unimportant. They have their own language of how to insult people.
I lol’d at that ridiculous line! “Too downmarket.” Instant classic!
Also, I hate to be that person, but their anniversary actually isn’t until tomorrow (I’m so mad that I even know this), so we can expect the DM to keep on rolling pieces like this out for a little while longer.
“ Although it may seem alien to regular Britons, the Royal Family follows rules of etiquette established hundreds of years ago, which state that inviting exes is okay.”
Really? I call BS. Prior to QE2’s children, who were the exes that were invited to QE2’s wedding? Her father’s? Queen Vic’s?
The presence of the exes were so weird – like move on, move along. Meghan didn’t invite her ex-hubby to her wedding. Harry was probably forced to follow that “tradition” as well as inviting the Middletons.
As for Willie’s wedding photo above, what were those two nuns doing at his wedding?
Charles, for one. I think this article was as much tweaking Charlie’s nose as it was William and Kate’s. Camilla was at Charles and Diana’s wedding, wasn’t she?
Royals didn’t “date” back then so the “hundreds of years” is stupid from the jump. And they definitely didn’t date members of the aristocracy. That happened twice between king james marrying Anne Hyde and WW1. Princess Louise (daughter of Victoria) married the future Duke of Argyll and Louise (daughter of Edward VII) married the Duke of Fife. It wasn’t normalized until after ww1 when the European monarchies were decimated. So basically 1919 (when Princess Patricia married Alexander Ramsey) onwards. Not even a hundred years between then and William’s wedding.
Additional thought:
‘The world of the British royals is tiny, so falling out with them can mean social suicide.’
Is this a reminder to Kate to stay in line? Whatever happens you keep quiet and keep smiling? No repeat of the ‘rural rivals’ scenario.
IIRC Rose wasn’t invited to his wedding. Don’t think they were acquainted at the time. Had he met her prior to Lazy, she would have been a better consort for him while he dicked around, and she cut ribbons etc.
I do think Rose and her sister did get a reputation like the Wisteria sisters so that’s why Willie avoided them. But with social climbers following him everywhere, I think Willie gave up and said, “Fine, I’ll marry you.”
Rose was at the wedding because of the person she is married to and his status with the BRF.
@Somebody Was she? I don’t think I’ve seen photos of her at his wedding.
there might not have been because at the time she would have been unknown to the general public. But as her husband was GLC under QEII she would definitely have been invited, and a quick google search tells me they did attend.
She got married to Rocksavage in 2009.
I don’t remember ever seeing a photo of Rose at W&K’s wedding, but I’m sure she was there considering her husband’s role (unless maybe she had just given birth and had a newborn at home, or some sort of extenuating circumstances). But she definitely would have been expected to be there.
We just didn’t know we should be looking for her yet! (I’m actually surprised that no one combed through all of the wedding pictures to find her, but it’s possible that people did, and I just never saw them.)
William settled for Kate. A lot of maneuvers by Kate and Carole to capture his heart. Isabella was not an ex she turned him down
Charles invited his mistresses dale and Camilla to his first wedding
Chuck may have started this particular “tradition” though I’m not sure if Anne invited APB at her wedding.
Ifs so odd to use the word ‘partners’ to describe these women when it’s a) people he pursued but they weren’t interested b) people he dated briefly when he was a teenager. Maybe it’s a British thing? It’s actually interesting that William never had a long term adult relationship other than Kate. I had never thought of that to be honest. And yes the aristocratic girls in the UK or foreign houses were not going anywhere near either wales kid after how that family treated Diana.
This is news? Wow.
I still think her dress is boring and her makeup looked like it was slapped on with a trowel.
Boring or not, Alexander McQueen must be turning in his grave that his name is being used to endorse such vulgar plagiarism.
A few months earlier, Silvio Berlusconi’s goddaughter Isabella Orsini got married in an identical dress. The palace tried to defend itself by saying that there are many similar ones, citing Grace Kelly’s dresses as an example, but Kate’s dress was slightly similar to Grace’s, while Orsini’s dress was identical, and when Kate got married, Orsini was in her dress in all the media. Pathetic.
If Alexander McQueen designed, it would be something special, not copy/paste. I always had a theory that Sara Burton, who was McQueen’s assistant, took in the designs and ideas that he left behind, which no one saw. That’s why the first ones, supposedly independent, were still so Alexander-esque. It got worse later.
Wow! Orsini carried that dress so well!
How am I just finding out about this? Even the Daily Fail did an article on it and wow, what a blatant copy.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1386159/Kate-Middleton-Isabella-Orsini-wedding-dresses-strikingly-similar.html
How did I never know about Isabella Orsini’s dress?? Wow. That’s pretty blatant.
@blogger
Orsini had an incomparably nicer veil and wore it better.
It looked awful on Kate, especially from the side, because it weighed down her hair. It pulled it down and flattened it.
https://bi.im-g.pl/im/8/9586/z9586498Q,Isabella-Orsini-i-Kate-Middleton-.jpg
What wasn’t copied from the Orsini dress was copied from Princess Margaret’s. As soon as I saw the shape of the skirt and the boob darts, it was obvious. And what better way to gain the approval of the queen than to bring up memories of her sister?
So even then Kate was copying other women’s clothes. So weird to do this with your wedding dress before the eyes of the world!
Kate watched for possible rivals and she would rush over if she saw another woman flirting with William and lying telling the women she was his girlfrien even though she and huevo were just friends.
Eh. Harry’s exes were at his wedding too. However they way the describe Jecca as his first love and closest friend feels like a taunt.
That wedding was spark-less and dull and so is their anniversary if the most interesting thing to write about is who attended the wedding well over a decade ago.
I really thought their anniversary is on the 29th — tomorrow — not today…?
I didn’t realize just how bald Peggy already was by his wedding.. he really shouldn’t have made her wait so long he could have had a full head of hair in those pictures that get dragged out every year around this time.
With their last big breakup, some of the rats were telling Lazy that it’s fine, he’s balding now, he’d be hard pressed to find someone else.
True and this must have forced Willie to settle for her because nobody else wanted him.
I remember watching this wedding & thinking, huh. That was anticlimactic. But you don’t want to leap to the most anticlimactic and depressing conclusion, which is that these people have just made a huge mistake that they will rue for 18 months before either divorcing or settling to a life of quiet desperation. It’s like a mashup of Succession and the White Lotus, the MAGA land marriage story: mutual loathing coupled to a fierce drive to keep up appearances if only to serve a fairly narrow agenda. What are the emotions that would most likely assail you if you were to have witnessed this amongst a group of friends? Dollars to donuts, if you had a friend who married a guy who treated her like this for a decade before the wedding, only to show up on the day itself blind drunk, you’d tell her to run. At least, you’d get a glass of strong drink and ask her, in an even tone, after much brooding, “are you guys ok?” The thing is, people are so desperate to believe it, they end up involuntarily channeling Richard Pryor: “who are you gonna believe? Me, or your lying eyes?” … i feel sorry for the kids. Has any of these people save Harry ever had a marriage that wasn’t loveless? This society could use some introspection about what purpose this family serves, as a model for families in general. It reeks of the same chauvie overcompensating, simpering dysfunction you see in tradwife circles. It’s odd how the weight of it only settles with time, like the moral arc of the universe is temporarily deflected by the wishful thinking.
I knew of a marriage where the bride and groom fought on the MORNING of their wedding. They shared a kid and it was a car crash in slow motion.
EVERYONE at the wedding knew how bad the relationship was but they went through the motions and got married. They divorced a decade later. And lots of therapy still needed.
Good Lort…. I went to a wedding once with a fellow I was dating who knew the bride and groom very well. He told me, sotto voce, during the ceremony that the bride was shagging the best man on the side. I just can’t with these people…
@Jaded, I need to know how you kept yourself from either gasping or shrieking at that moment
Do you think that Kate has finally come to terms with reality; that he married her because there was no one else who wanted him.? What a hollow victory, one that cost her self respect.
I think she’s known that for a while. What’s changed is that her distractions (clothes, jewelry) are now severely limited—and status has turned to ashes because no one thinks much of her outside the BM.
I’m currently rewatching their wedding because I want to see it with 2025 eyes. 14 minutes in and people were loudly cheering for William when his car came out. A cold reminder that they truly did have a lot of public goodwill but wouldn’t capitalize off it.
They cheered him because he was Diana’s first born and the people wanted him to find the happiness that she never did.
Oh well. At least Harry broke the cycle.
Very true Blogger. To be fair, there was still a lot about William that wasn’t known to the general public because only the royal watchers were paying close attention. As an American I will not lie I thought he did found happiness with Kate at the time, I didn’t know much about the Royal Family post Diana’s death and Kate was only formally introduced to the world six months prior to the wedding.
@Xantha they gave Willie a lot of leeway and a lot of freedom while the Palaces threw Harry to the wolves.
I think the Middletons were also seen as a breath of fresh air because they weren’t from the aristo circle (except for Mike’s Lupton connection), Carole seemed to be seen at the time as a successful businesswoman who managed to claw her way out of her council house/working class miners roots. So their wedding seemed to address the classism at the core of the monarchy.
It was also a fantasy of the rats who weren’t from the gentry, that they were writing this fairytale to their readers that they could too become a Princess of England despite a very middle class background.
Of course, this was all smoke and mirrors to mask the social climbing ways of the Middletons. Carole was ruthless and ensured her daughters only attended schools and universities frequented by the aristo set and Willie’s social circle, that her daughters did not interact with people who did not propel them up socially (Kate dropped a lot of friends) hence the Wisteria sisters.
Basically everything was an attempt to mask Carole’s working class roots and trying to be more aristo than the aristo themselves. A very Thatcherian approach.
So agree with the goodwill, but a disaster for the longevity of the firm to have an heir and consort so lazy to justify their public funding. That’s why Lazy will never be one of them (aristos). Duty (and selfless service) is at the core, and this is a vital ingredient missing from the Middleton DNA.
Lazy and Carole should have embraced their working class roots instead of denying they had ever existed.
See Blogger that’s what gets me: Why be so ashamed of your humble roots? I imagine a lot of Brits were fine with the Middletons not being aristos. And those posh blue bloods know a phony when they see one, hence why the Midds will never be accepted. Carole should’ve just encouraged her daughters to actually be independent and to find husbands who would appreciate that.
@ Blogger – Agreed with public wishing for Diana’s son to find happiness. To believe in the fairytale that never existed.
I recall Jordanian Prince Hussein’s wedding vividly with Kate (who attended along side Middletons) photographed looking dazed and confused among a room full of dignitaries ALONE.
I deep dove into her appearances since that wedding and the lack of amical connection is quite evident (to me).
https://people.com/royals/kate-middleton-every-outfit-2023-princess-of-wales/
I think the sharks smell blood…
Kate waited years for the ring. She was very much in evidence years before the wedding
Ita— both W&K had *so much* goodwill around the time of the wedding and in the year or two afterward, and they just threw it away.
They were given such a long grace period, but after it became evident once YEARS had passed by that they were never going to step up and do any work, that’s when most of us realized who they truly are.
*shrugs*. My ex boyfriend (my first ever boyfriend from high school from like 15 years before I got married) was at my wedding. And yeah, after the initial pain of the breakup, we remained friends because we had the same friend group. He was there with his wife who was out on the dance floor with me at the reception. It wasn’t weird at all. A few years earlier, I had gone to his wedding too with my husband who was my boyfriend at the time.
Having an ex or two at your wedding isn’t weird in and of itself. My sister’s former BF, whom she dated for three years in her early 20s, was one of the ushers at her wedding five years after their breakup. They were still friends and had an overlapping social circle, so he had actually become buddies with her husband too.
I don’t think this was the dynamic at William and Kate’s wedding, to be fair. And four is a lot. But their presence isn’t really what was off about that affair. The groom being hung over and not seeming happy was weird, though.
Did Kate ever date anyone other than Willy?
She had a brief relationship of some sort (romantic? friends with benefits? just friends?) with Rupert Finch at St. Andrews. She apparently dropped him three weeks after meeting Willy. But per the DM, he got an invite to her marriage.
Who is this article for? We often get a “Remember When?” wedding anniversary article ( with photos), but this particular angle seems…odd, don’t you think?
Are the rota just tired of another year of “It was a fairy tale wedding! They were so young and beautiful and bursting with unrealized potential!”? I agree that there’s not too much meat on that bone, especially as these two are still basically in a state of arrested development. But this is not the article I would want commemorating my marriage anniversary, that’s for sure!
Why do the media particularly feel the need to remind us about the special rules of the upper class? Or is it a reminder/ warning for just one person?
It is an interesting angle. I wish someone would cut loose with what’s really happening within their marital agreement. I remember thinking the wedding was “meh” back when it happened. It was only exciting in the run-up; the ceremony itself felt very shallow, like two actors performing a scene. No wonder Pippa got so much press that day. Kate’s dress was a nothingburger and I will die on that hill. Princess Margaret’s dress done up with lace and white on white embroidery that didn’t translate to television. A curtain-like veil and a ton of eyeliner.
@Dee, “I wish someone would cut loose with what’s really happening within their marital agreement.”
I’m at the point where I’m just hoping this happens during my lifetime!
@Dee Excuse you. The most memorable moment were the Princesses of York hats. Knowing now more of Kate she must have been fuming 🤭.
Since Diana’s fate I’ve always said the British Aristocracy vowed to never let one of their daughters marry into the Windsor Clan. The BRF decimated the most famous, glamorous and beloved British aristocrat in the world.
Time has certainly soured how I feel about the couple, but man I still love that dress.
Of course I had to google
Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe!
She’s pretty (in a bland way) and had a little acting career (as Isabella Calthorpe). She married rich Branson scion, Sam – smart girl!
The pronunciation of her full name must be a trip.
“The slew of exes were not invited so that the royal couple could awkwardly make eye contact with them as they walked down the aisle.”
Harry did this, so I can buy this explanation.
The real story is how William looked in the pictures above and that awkward kiss they shared. In essence, Kate looked like a happy bride and William was one of the people at her wedding.