| The wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine Middleton took place on April 29, 2011 in Westminster Abbey in London (England). Prince William, who is second in the list of successors to the throne after his father, Prince Charles, met Catherine Middleton for the first time in 2001, when both were studying at the University of St. Andrews. The announcement of their engagement, which took place on October 20, 2010, was made on November 16, 2010. Preparations for the wedding and the occasion itself got wide coverage in the mass media and the wedding ceremony was broadcasted worldwide. The ceremony was compared in many aspects to the marriage of William's parents, Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, who were married in 1981. Approximately 24.5 million audiences watched the wedding on TV in Great Britain and estimations of the global audience fluctuated from 300 million to two billion.
Significant attention was focussed on Kate Middleton's status as being a commoner (i.e not from royal or aristocratic descent), getting married to a member of the royal family. A few hours prior to the marriage ceremony, the Queen conferred the titles “Duke of Cambridge”, “Earl of Strathearn” and “Baron Carrickfergus” on Prince William. After the wedding, Middleton became "Her Royal Highness, The Duchess of Cambridge", but was not named "Princess Catherine".
Since Prince William was not the apparent heir to the throne, the wedding was not a state event completely and many details such as the majority of the visitors list, comprising of approximately 1900 invitees, was left to the couple's discretion. It was a state festival in Great Britain, with a large number of ceremonial aspects including the use of the state carriage, foot and horse guards. Many foreign members of the royal family, diplomats and special guests of the couple attended the ceremony.
Middleton wore a white dress with a 270cm train made by British designer Sarah Burton and a tiara, which was lent to her by Queen. Prince William was in his uniform as honorary colonel of the Irish Guards. His brother, Prince Harry was the best man of Prince William, while the sister of the bride, Pippa was her maid of honour. The wedding ceremony began at 11:00 BST (UTC+1). The service was conducted by the Dean of Westminster, John Robert Hall, along with Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, who conducted the marriage of the couple and Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, gave the sermon. James, brother of the bride, read verses from "Epistle to the Romans". After the ceremony, the newly-wed couple went in a procession to Buckingham Palace for a traditional appearance on the balcony and for the crowd, which gathered there at The Mall. Later, the Prince took the Duchess to Clarence-House, situated not far away in his father's classic Aston Martin DB6 Volante, which was decorated by Prince Harry and James Middleton with a back number plate syaing "JUST WED".
After the wedding, the couple intend to continue living on the Anglesey Island in Northern Wales, where Prince William is posted as search and rescue pilot of the Royal Air Force.
Couple:
Prince William is the eldest son of Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales, and grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh. Thus, he is the second, after his father, in the list of successors for 16 independent states known as “Commonwealth Realms”. William completed his education at Ludgrove School, Eton College and later from the University of St. Andrews. After graduating from university, he was made an officer of the Household Cavalry from Sandhurst. Later on, he was transferred to the Royal Air Forces and became a pilot in the search and rescue forces at Anglesey Island.
Catherine (Kate) Middleton is the eldest of Michael and Carol Middleton’s three children. She completed her education at St. Andrews School in Pangbourne, Marlborough College and the University of St. Andrews. After completion, she worked in retail business and later as an accessories buyer and catalogue photographer in the business run by her parents. Basically, she has English parents but her ancestors came from Scotland and France. Her father's family came from Leeds (Western Yorkshire) while her mother’s family, the Harrisons were workers and miners from county Durham.
The couple met each other while studying at the University of St. Andrews. Both lived in the student's hostel during the first year and later on lived together for the next two years in the city. They are fifteenth generation cousins - Sir Thomas Fairfax and his wife, Agnes are their common ancestors. |
The Queen sent out invitations to Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding to over 1900 guests. Whilst it is under the 3500 visitors from the wedding ceremony of Princess Diana and Prince Charles in 1981, the cash-strapped British royal family are searching for methods to reduce the costs for the upcoming wedding, especially since the substantial budget slashes by the British Prime Minister David Cameron. The Queen, who is now 84 years old, has worked her entire life and now her cash is running out. To make it all worse the Buckingham Palace roof is leaking, and now she also has to take care of this regal wedding event. The first choice was to create a less expensive wedding ceremony by reducing the amount of visitors from 4000 to 1900. Consequently, numerous global figures such as Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy weren't asked. It makes you wonder in what other ways the Royal family will make the wedding less costly than expected. The use of plastic cutlery has not been reported yet.
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