The People's wedding
BRITAIN is set to party with a four-day national holiday when Prince William marries Kate Middleton next spring.
St James’s Palace announced yesterday the couple will tie the knot at Westminster Abbey on Friday April 29 in a people’s wedding.
And senior Royal aides said the happy couple’s view was very much “Let’s all have a party”.
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William and Kate, described as “on cloud nine”, want the £32.5million wedding to be “classically British...very much what we do best”, said their spokesman last night.
They were heartened by Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement yesterday that the wedding day would be made a bank holiday, he added.
For tens of millions of revellers across the nation, the wedding will kick off a four-day celebration with the Friday holiday, followed by the traditional May Day bank holiday on the Monday.
Prince William and Kate Middleton are to marry on April 29th at Westminster Abbey
The prince and his bride-to-be, both 28, were especially keen that the public become involved in the celebrations and street parties are expected throughout the land.
The ceremony – full of pomp and circumstance – is likely to be conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, though this has yet to be finalised.
Around 2,000 guests will take their places in the Abbey, with the reception expected to be held at Buckingham Palace.
In a surprise move, Kate’s parents are set to share the £20million bill with the Royal Family to avoid piling the cost on the taxpayer.
This will include the cost of the church service, music, flowers, decorations reception and honeymoon.
The Queen is expected to pay for the reception, while Charles and the Middletons will pay for the rest.
The main bill faced by taxpayers will be security, costing around £12.5million.
The prince’s private secretary Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton said: “This is Prince William and Catherine’s day. They are calling the shots. With the whole world watching, they want it to be classically British.
“The couple are completely over the moon. I’ve never seen two happier people.They are on cloud nine, like any other newly-engaged couple.
“They’re now getting stuck into organising their wedding. They are very much in charge of the arrangements.
“They’re giving us and the Household office very firm direction indeed.”
The Prime Minister was consulted on the date of the wedding, which will be less than a week before the local elections and expected referendum on voting reform on May 5 2011.
A senior Royal aide said: “He was very content with the selection of the date.”
David Cameron had already backed calls for a bank holiday to celebrate the occasion and the Cabinet agreed the move at its weekly meeting yesterday.
Mr Cameron said: “The wedding will be a happy and momentous occasion.
“We want to mark the day as one of national celebration – a public holiday will ensure the most people possible will have a chance to celebrate on the day.”
William and Kate were said last night to be “very grateful” that the day will be a bank holiday.
They are very keen on making their wedding a national celebration and a concert in London’s Hyde Park to mark the occasion has been proposed.
The wedding falls just four days after Easter Monday and a week after Good Friday, so the public will already have had two days of public holidays within a week of the ceremony.
The happy couple will be hoping for good weather on their big day.
April typically gets around 190 hours of sunshine with fairly dry warm weather towards the end of the month.
Aisling Creevey, of forecasters Meteogroup, said yesterday: “It has been known to snow in April but we’ve also had temperatures in the 30s.”
Detailed planning over the guest list and Kate’s wedding dress is ongoing. Guests are expected to include several heads of state, though the event is viewed as only a “semi-state occasion”.
Asked about who would be invited, a Royal aide said: “There will be certain people who you would be very happy to see but wouldn’t necessarily be at the top of your list.”
Mr Lowther-Pinkerton said the couple chose Westminster Abbey “because of its staggering beauty, its 1,000-year Royal history and – in spite of its overall size – its relative intimacy.”
He said the Royal Family were very conscious of Britain’s precarious finances.
“All parties involved in the wedding, not least Prince William and Miss Middleton, want to ensure that a balance is struck between an enjoyable day and the current economic situation,” he added.
“To that end the Royal family and the Middleton family will pay for the wedding.
“Prince William and Catherine have made it very clear that they wish everybody to be able to enjoy the day with them.
“Having said that, the couple are very mindful of the current situation.
“Prince William has already expressed a clear wish that any involvement by the armed forces should rely in great part on those servicemen and women already committed to public and ceremonial duties.”
The couple announced their engagement last week, nine years after meeting as students at St Andrews University.
Though it has not yet been announced, it is widely expected that Prince Harry will be asked to be “supporter” – the royal equivalent of the traditional role of best man.
