Prince William reacts to clip of his own wedding to Kate
Prince William and Kate, Princess of Wales, got married on April 29, 2011, marking the sixteenth royal wedding to take place at Westminster Abbey.
After an almost 10-year romance, William proposed to his long-term girlfriend whom he had met while studying at St Andrew’s University.
Around 2,000 people gathered at the London church to witness the royal nuptials, including members of the Royal Family, friends of the couple from university, the Middleton family and celebrities such as Victoria Beckham, Elton John and Guy Ritchie.
However, as a royal author pointed out, there were some unexpected “snubs” from the guest list, with a number of the late Diana, Princess of Wales’s, “closest confidantes” not invited to the big event.
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Kate and William got married at Westminster Abbey in 2011 (Image: Getty)
Tina Brown, author of The Palace Papers, was editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast at the time of Kate and William’s wedding.
In her book, which was originally published in April 2022, Ms Brown recalled the historic event, noting a particular group who were snubbed from the guest list — and, indeed, from both William and his younger brother Prince Harry’s lives.
“Diana’s former circle was pruned from the boys’ lives,” she wrote, before explaining that “the Honourable Rosa Monckton, with whom Diana spent her last girls’ vacation in Greece, and Lucia Flecha de Lima, the Brazilian ambassador’s wife who was one of her closest confidantes, were cut from their [William and Harry’s] orbit”.
The author went on to reveal: “Lucia was snubbed from the wedding of William and Kate in 2011, and watched it on TV instead”.
Diana And Lucia Flecha De Lima in June 1997 (Image: Getty)
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Lucia had become a trusted friend of Diana in the early Nineties when her husband, Paulo Tarso Flecha de Lima, was Brazilian Ambassador to the UK.
She accompanied then-Prince Charles and Diana on a trip to Brazil in 1991, and the two women’s friendship grew even closer.
Lucia continued to be the Princess’s confidante throughout the turbulent years of her and Charles’s relationship, after their separation and ultimate divorce, and up until her death in August 1997.
In fact, the Princess was a regular guest at the Flecha de Lima’s home in Mayfair, where she put up a sign on her bedroom saying ‘Diana’s Room’.
Charles and Diana in Brazil in 1991 (Image: Getty Images)
Speaking at the time of Kate and William’s wedding, Lucia said: “I was friends with the groom’s mother and the ones who distributed the invitations were his father. But if I had gone, I would not even have anyone to talk to.”
Meanwhile, Rosa, who was considered “a leak risk because she had shared her memories of Diana with the press”, was also not in attendance at Diana’s eldest son’s big day.
“Even though she was the chairman of the committee for the Diana Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park, and her disabled daughter, Domenica, was Diana’s godchild, her letters to the princes on milestones such as their birthdays went unanswered,” Ms Brown wrote.
And the Daily Mail’s Richard Kay, the Princess’s “favourite royal correspondent, who always had the inside track and talked to her on the phone the last day she was alive, similarly received no access to her sons”.
Diana and Rosa turning on the Bond Street Christmas Lights in December 1993 (Image: Getty Images)
That being said, the 2011 wedding guest list was not entirely void of Diana’s close circle of friends.
Julia Samuel, founder of Child Bereavement UK, and a close friend of the late Princess was among the guests at the ceremony.
According to Ms Brown, Julia was Diana’s “scrupulously private school friend,” who the Duke of Sussex often turned to “for support”.
Julia is also one of the Waleses’ eldest son Prince George’s seven godparents.
rince William with Julia Samuel in March 2009 (Image: Getty)
Reports at the time suggested William ensured invitations went out to Diana’s friends and family.
The Princess’s siblings: Lady Sarah, Lady Jane and Earl Charles Spencer were all in attendance, as well as their children.
Moreover, celebrity guests such as Elton John and Joss Stone were nods to the late Princess, with the former having sung at Diana’s funeral in 1997 and the latter having performed at a special concert.
Sir John Major, former prime minister who was appointed special guardian to William and Harry following Diana’s death, was also in attendance.
The Palace Papers was written by Tina Brown and published by Cornerstone in April 2022. It is available here.
