Prince William and Kate Middleton have a love story for the ages. The two met for the first time while studying at St. Andrews University, and after becoming friends, they fell in love. Prince William romantically proposed during an overseas trip to Kenya, and the wedding at Westminster Abbey was truly fit for a future king.
The preparations for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding took months. Every detail had to be perfect, and of course, a lot of the talk was about Kate Middleton’s wedding dress.
While Prince William and Kate Middleton were involved in the planning, some things were out of their hands. For example, the future king was said to have been denied his wish to wear a different uniform than the one he wore. He was also reportedly “unhappy” with one major detail: the guest list.
Prince William and Kate Middleton’s decision to attend St Andrews University in Scotland changed their lives forever, as it was there they met for the first time.
William had taken a liking for the then 19-year-old Kate, who had just transferred from Marlborough College.
Prince William & Kate Middleton
In 2002, he bought a front-row ticket to a charity fashion show that Kate was featured in, spending around £200 for the seat.
Kate took to the catwalk in the now-legendary see-through dress, revealing her underwear underneath. By that point, William felt she wasn’t just a friend anymore but someone he had developed feelings for.
At first the two were good friends. In the fall of 2002, they moved into 13A Hope Street, an off-campus apartment, with friends Fergus Boyd and Olivia Bleasdale. However, it wasn’t a given that William would even be allowed to move into the off-campus apartment with Kate.
In 2023, the landlady Charlotte Smith recalled when William was to move in, the apartment had a strict no-boys policy.
“We’d had an unfortunate experience with some boys in the flat once before and we were determined not to have young men there again. Broken furniture, broken windows – there was a lot of damage, so that put us off really. I said to this young lady we’d really rather not have more boys and she said, ‘What if I were to tell you that it was Prince William?'” Smith told the Daily Mail.
Smith’s husband convinced her that the future king could move into the flat. It turned out that Prince William and Kate Middleton were “ideal tenants.”
“We arranged to meet Kate Middleton, Fergus and Olivia before they moved in but we thought we’d better not ask to see Prince William because we thought his credit rating must be quite good. But he insisted on meeting us,” she continued.
Prince William tried to impress Kate with “fancy dinners”
The now-Prince and Princess of Wales paid around £400 monthly at Hope Street.
In their engagement video, Prince William elaborated on their time in university: “We moved in together as friends because we were living together, we lived with a couple of others as well, it just sort of blossomed from there really,” William said. “We just saw more of each other, hung out a bit more and did stuff.”
So, was William a romantic guy? Well, he revealed that he cooked dinner for Kate. She admitted that “he would always come with a bit of angst and a bit of anger if something had gone wrong,” and that she “would have to wander in and save something that was going.”
“When I was trying to impress Kate, I was trying to cook these amazing fancy dinners, and what would happen was I would burn something, something would overspill, something would catch on fire and she would be sitting in the background trying to help, and basically taking control of the whole situation, so I was quite glad she was there at the time,” Prince William recalled.
On October 20, 2010, Prince William proposed to Kate Middleton during a holiday in Kenya. The prince had reportedly been carrying a ring in a bag for three weeks and never let it go. Kate had considered the idea that William might propose, but it came as a “total shock.”
“It was very romantic,” Kate said. “There’s a true romantic in there.”
The ring was exceptional and fitting for a future queen as it belonged to William’s mother, Princess Diana.
How Kate Middleton revealed her engagement to Prince William for her siblings
The proposal wasn’t a shock only to Kate but also to her family. The now-Princess of Wales decided to share the fantastic news during a night out with her siblings, James and Pippa, at the Old Boot pub near their parents’ house in Bucklebury, England.
“We sit in a corner, chattering quietly. Catherine whispers the news and says it will become public in the next day or so,” James wrote in his memoir Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life, per Us Weekly. “Pippa and I want to be visibly excited, but we have to tamp down our emotions so no one suspects a thing,” he added.
“We make a quiet acknowledgment that we’ll always be there for each other, look out for one another, support each other:”
Prince William decided to skip the longstanding tradition of asking the father of the bride permission to marry his daughter. He was “torn” about the decision and nervous about the possibility that he’d reject it.
On April 29, 2011, William and Kate tied the knot at Westminster Abbey in London. The wedding was planned to the minute, but Prince William was still troubled by some things leading up to the big day.
The royal outfits are always a big talking point during royal weddings, and of course it was no different for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s big day.
Prince William – uniform for the wedding
Kate MIddleton chose to wear an amazing Alexander McQueen dress, and before the wedding, Buckingham Palace announced what William was to wear:
“Prince William has chosen to wear the uniform of Colonel of the Irish Guards on his Wedding Day. Prince William, who is commissioned in all three Armed Services, and who has served actively with the Army (The Household Cavalry Regiment) and with the Royal Air Force (Search and Rescue Force), chose to wear the uniform of his senior honorary appointment in the Army.”
“Prince William will wear an Irish Guards Mounted Officer’s uniform in Guard of Honour Order with a Forage Cap. The Prince will wear a gold and crimson sash, and gold sword slings, both of which are worn in the presence of a Member of the Royal Family. The Prince will not wear a sword. The Prince will wear the Garter Sash with the Wings of the Royal Air Force, the Garter Star, and the Golden Jubilee Medal.”
The statement continued, “The tunic, in Guards’ Red, features the Irish Guards’ distinctive arrangement of buttons in groups of four. The buttons feature the Harp of Ireland surmounted by the Crown Imperial. The arrangement of buttons on the uniform denotes the Irish Guards’ position in the Order of Battle as the Fourth Regiment of Foot Guards.”
“The Insignia of the Irish Guards on the Forage Cap is the eight-pointed Star of the Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick and features the Regiment’s motto ‘Quis Separabit?’ (‘Who shall separate us?’).“
Although Prince William wore his uniform with pride, it wasn’t what he wanted. In fact, Queen Elizabeth II denied him his primary wish.
Queen Elizabeth II denied William his uniform wish
In the BBC documentary Royal Wedding: A Day to Remember, royal expert Nikkhah said that Prince William hoped to wear his Household Cavalry military uniform. But Queen Elizabeth had another idea in mind.
“The military is everything to William and to Harry. The Queen said, ‘No, you’re wearing your Irish Guards. You are the new Colonel of the Irish Guards.’ That’s the one thing he didn’t get his way on, and he deferred to Granny,” Nikkhah said.
In his book Spare, Prince Harry also wrote that his brother was denied to wear his Household Cavalry military uniform.
“He’d asked Granny if he could wear his Household Cavalry kit and she’d turned him down. As the Heir, he must wear the Number One Ceremonial, she decreed,” Harry wrote.
“Willy was glum at having so little say in what he wore to get married, at having his autonomy taken from him on such an occasion. He’d told me several times that he felt frustrated.”
“I assured him that he looked bloody smart in the Harp of Ireland, with the Crown Imperial and the forage cap with the regimental motto: ‘Quis Separabit? Who shall separate us?’ It didn’t seem to make an impression.”
It’s no secret that Prince William wanted to wear another uniform. The future king previously told journalist Robert Hardman for the Daily Mail that he “wanted to decide what to wear for the wedding,” but that he “knew perfectly well that it was for the best.”
“You just do as you’re told!” Prince William reportedly said.
Prince William was ‘unhappy’ with wedding guest list
Queen Elizabeth II may have declined William’s wish for disulfiram, but when her grandson and the future king showed concern for the guest list, she relented.
As one can imagine, the guest list for that type of royal wedding was quite special. It included a great mix of celebrities, including Sir Elton John, David Beckham, and Rowan Atkinson, politicians, dignitaries, friends of William and Kate from their university days, and even the landlord from The Old Boot Inn, the Middleton family’s local pub in their hometown.
But while many of their closest friends and family attended, something wasn’t quite right. Speaking on the BBC documentary, Roya Nikkhah explained that William was angry about the guest list because there were so many people that he didn’t know.
“When the guest list was drawn up [William] was very bemused and had a conversation with the Queen to say ‘I don’t know any of these people’. He wasn’t very happy about it. The Queen just said to him, rip that list up and start where you want to start from and invite who you want – and that’s what they did,” Nikkhah explained.
John Haley, the landlord of The Old Boot Inn, said, “It was great that Kate and William were allowed to invite all their own friends. Friends from the village, from uni, friends that she grew up with. She invited me, I’ve known her 15 years or so. It was fabulous.”
Prince William & Kate Middleton “brought the house down” with wedding reception surprise
Of course, the wedding was a big success, and royal fans worldwide celebrated the newlyweds. Meanwhile, the many guests received quite a surprise at the post-nuptial reception.
“They stood holding hands in the middle of the dance floor, grinning,” Robert Jobson writes in his book, Catherine, The Princess of Wales: The Biography.
“Then, suddenly, the opening bars of the song, You’re the One That I Want from the musical Grease came booming out. William and Catherine then began dancing around, pointing at each other, and mouthing the words with the style of the lead characters Danny and Sandy. It brought the house down.”
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