Your royal wedding questions answered
- Published
Just over two weeks to go now before Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding.
You have been sending in your royal wedding questions to me via or on Twitter.
Feel free to keep sending me more, or you can e-mail your questions using the form at the bottom of the page.
In the meantime, here are a few of your questions with my answers:
Who do they choose to get slices of the wedding cake and does the public get any?
Given the demand for countless slices, I suspect more than one wedding cake will end up being made. All the 650 guests at the Buckingham Palace reception will get a piece of the traditional multi-tiered iced fruit cake which will be on display. But slices will also be sent to hundreds of others who have contributed to the wedding or to the couple's lives in some way and who aren't on the guest list. These include contractors who work for the royal household.
How will public guests be chosen?
Prince William and Kate Middleton have been in the driving seat and have overseen every aspect of their wedding planning, including the guest list. The 1,900 people inside Westminster Abbey will include royals, the prime ministers of Commonwealth countries, the couple's close friends, the butcher and the postman from Kate's home village of Bucklebury, and representatives of the charities William is associated with.
Is there any colour preference for the horses pulling the carriage?
Since the reign of George II, cream, black, bay and grey horses have been used for royal carriages, but never chestnut ones. On the wedding day, Cleveland Bays, the only British breed of carriage horse will pull the majority of royal carriages. The famous Windsor Greys will be reserved for the just-married couple and for the Queen. One of the monarch's Windsor Greys will be 17-year-old Daniel who is said to have a good-natured temperament.
How many celebs were invited to the royal wedding?
The full guest list hasn't been made public. All we know for now is that sitting in the pews of the ancient Abbey will be the footballer David Beckham, his wife Victoria, the pop star Sir Elton John and his partner David Furnish. More names will be released in the coming days. My hunch is that this list will include other sports people and performers, including the singer Joss Stone who sang at the 10th anniversary concert for Diana, Princess of Wales.
Will the marriage ceremony include a memorial of Diana? It's heartbreaking his mum can't be there.
Prince William has already said that he gave Kate Middleton his late mother's sapphire engagement ring as a way of keeping Diana "close to it all". Unless the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, talks about the princess in his sermon, there's unlikely to be any direct reference to the mother of the future king. The wedding service will be a traditional Anglican one.
How much will the royal wedding (including security) cost the public purse in total?
At a time of cuts, the royals know they have to stage a wedding which is fit for a prince and his bride-to-be but which isn't too extravagant. So, it's been made clear that much of the bill will be paid for by the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Middletons. But, and it's a significant but, the taxpayer will still foot the cost of security. That will be a hefty sum which will never be disclosed. The only figure in the public domain is the annual cost of £128m for providing protection to the royals, senior politicians, VIPs and diplomats.
Will the wedding be filmed in 3D?
The broadcasters, especially Sky News, had wanted to film the ceremony in 3D. There's even a suggestion Sky filmed a mock wedding in a church and showed the end result to Prince William and Kate Middleton to try and persuade them of the merits of their case. But in the end, the couple rejected the proposal on the grounds the cameras needed would be too large and the audience for 3D television was still relatively small.
Are all the people invited going to the dinner after the church ceremony?
Royal officials will have to summon up all their best diplomatic skills when the wedding service ends at Westminster Abbey. There will be a parting of the ways. Of the 1,900 people in the congregation, only around 650 will be making the short journey - by coach and by horse-drawn carriage - to Buckingham Palace for the lunchtime canapé reception. The most favoured guests will have received not one, not two, but three invitations. The last one, sent to some 300 close friends and family members, is for a dinner dance in the evening.
- Published11 April 2011