Penny Junor: Prince William

‘He had no experience of big state weddings,’ says one of the team, so his starting point was very different from his father, who did have a cathedral full of strangers. ‘By the time Charles was married he had been invested in a coronation-like ceremony at Caernarfon Castle and was very used to big formal events with lots of pageantry, where you’re an actor on the stage. William has not had that experience, so he approached his wedding day, genuinely, as, “I take thee, Catherine, to be my wife,” and that was the most important thing about it.

‘He had complete freedom to do what he wanted. It was very interesting. There’s this assumption that the Queen is a real stickler for protocol and formality, but not at all. He’s learned from her that you take the best of tradition and when you do it, you do it beautifully and well, but you start with what you want out of the event, because only then will it have any integrity, and feel like an event that the principals want to be at.’

In the run-up to the wedding, William saw his grandmother for about half an hour every week – it was timetabled into her schedule – and if they couldn’t arrange a meeting, they spoke on the phone at length. They talked through every aspect of what he was planning for the day. His call would always be put straight through to her if she was free, and sometimes he would get her on her mobile phone (yes, at eighty-six she tweets and has a mobile). The conversations would be a mixture of gossip and general chit-chat, with William sometimes asking for advice, and being reminded, humorously, that the last time she gave him advice, he chose to ignore it.

She was the one person he could turn to when he was being pressurised or pulled in different directions. She was of great help to him, both practically and emotionally, in guiding him through his big day and helping him achieve everything he wanted from it.

Early in the process, before they had even confirmed a date, the team sat down to discuss the media plan, knowing it would be in five or six months. They had an idea about how to play it; envisaging a steady flow of information throughout the period. William had a different and very strong view of his own. There had been a tremendous amount of media coverage in the week or so since the engagement; he wanted it to die down and for further information to be held back for as long as possible. The bulk of the details should be released no more than two or three weeks before the wedding, and he wanted to hold back a few secrets for the day itself. They take their hats off to him. ‘I don’t think there’s a single person out there who looked at that media plan and didn’t think, God, that was a really good strategy in terms of how you don’t over-cook it, don’t let people get bored. It was entirely his idea.’

There were obviously a few things that couldn’t wait: the date, Friday, 29 April (which would be a bank holiday), and the place, Westminster Abbey. The Abbey would inevitably be filled with memories of his mother, and maybe that was why he chose it, but it is also a beautiful building and a big space with the illusion, in the chancel, of a much smaller church. In January a few more details were released, but the rest only started trickling out in the month before. It would be an 11 a.m. start, Kate would travel to the Abbey by car, not the traditional coach; the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall, would conduct the service, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, would marry them, and the Bishop of London, Dr Richard Chartres, would give the address. They would make the journey back to Buckingham Palace in a carriage procession via Parliament Square, Whitehall, Horse Guards Arch, Horse Guards Parade and the Mall; the Queen would host a lunchtime reception for guests representing the couple’s official and private lives; and in the evening the Prince of Wales would host a private dinner at the Palace for close friends and family, followed by dancing.

Another early announcement was that they were setting up a Royal wedding gift fund and asking anyone wanting to give them a present to make a donation instead to one of twenty-six little-known charities, which they chose together. It was the first time anything like this had been done and it raised over a million pounds.

There were three things the team agreed to keep secret until the day: the name of the designer Kate had chosen for her wedding dress – and they are astonished that the secret held; the vows, hymns and music – the very personal elements of the service; and the use of Prince Charles’s Aston Martin – his twenty-first birthday present from the Queen – as their ‘going away’ car. Their reasoning was simply that with so much information going into the public arena in advance, they wanted everyone to experience some of the same surprises that arise at normal weddings.

There was early speculation that Richard Chartres might marry them, as he was a friend, but that was never a possibility. After the engagement, he did, however, quietly prepare Kate for confirmation into the Church of England. William accompanied her, and she was confirmed in March in a private and very small service at the Chapel Royal in St James’s Palace. Only William and her family were present. As she explained, she chose not to do it at school when all her peers were being confirmed as if it were some sort of social rite of passage, but wanted to do it when it would really mean something.

Her husband, of course, will one day be Defender of the Faith, or, more probably, Defender of Faith, which is his father’s preferred term, better suited to Britain’s multi-faith society. William has a genuine faith, like his father, but he is a typical old-fashioned Anglican, who doesn’t shout about it but quietly goes about his life following Christian ethics. He is not an extreme Anglican, as a number of his and Kate’s friends are. They are members of Holy Trinity, Brompton (HTB), ‘a vibrant Anglican church in the heart of London’ is how it describes itself, ‘with a vision to play our part in the re-evangelisation of the nations and the transformation of society.’ It has particular appeal, some would say alarming appeal, to the young, particularly the moneyed, middle and upper classes in Britain, and HTB devised the Alpha course, which is on its way to taking over the world.

William has great respect for Richard Chartres, and over the years has spoken at length to him. He is a charismatic character who has great passion, presence and authority – also humanity and intellect; one can’t help but be impressed by him. As one of the Household says, ‘He is William’s kind of bishop, the sort who rolls his sleeves up, and who believes in muscular Christianity, not intellectual, theological Christianity. His is much more William’s end of the faith spectrum.’

When a massive earthquake hit the New Zealand city of Christchurch in February, two months before the wedding, William was working flat out, desperately trying to get his hours in because of the time he would be taking off for the wedding. He was flying day and night, and when he wasn’t he was dealing with wedding arrangements. Yet, as shocking scenes of destruction filled our television screens, so soon after the horrifying images of floods and cyclones in Australia, his instinct was to show them they were not forgotten. There was heavy loss of life, homes and livelihoods in both countries and he wanted to stand alongside their shattered communities.

His Household knew his affection for the Antipodes, but also knew his workload, and didn’t think in a million years that William would consider going. Then they received a phone call. ‘The Royal Family has got to do something here,’ William said. ‘We’ve got to get down there and see them. Can you please ask who’s going and if it’s being debated, please put my hat in the ring? I really want to do this.’ He pushed and pushed and wouldn’t take no for an answer, and in the end he simply said, ‘I’m off. I’ve got permission from my instructors to do this, let’s go.’