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.
