Weddings, Royal Style
Photo by Andreas Rentz/PP/Getty Images
Flickr by The British Monarchy
This year turned out to be rich for Royal Weddings. The nuptial celebration of Kate Middleton, 29, and Prince William, 28, attracted, by some estimates, 2 billion viewers all around the world. This week another royal wedding, of Prince Albert II, 53 and Charlene Wittstock, 33, took place in Monaco. This celebration in Monaco attracted only a quarter of the number of viewers of the British Royal Wedding, but outshone it in many ways.
Both celebrations demonstrated what a wedding would be if a bride was not limited by a budget. William and Kate went for traditional choices when they planned their wedding and often used “something borrowed”. They ended up spending 32 million pounds or about 48 million Australian dollars. Albert and Charlene tried to make their wedding more glamorous and grand which cost them about 68 million dollars. This is a lot of money, considering there were only 1900 guests at the ceremony and 650 guests at the reception in London and 3500 guests in the church and 900 guests at the wedding in Monaco.
Let’s revisit some of the highlights of these weddings and may be you can compare them with your wedding plans and budgets.
Prince William made a very romantic and sentimental choice of an engagement ring. He presented to Kate a ring with an oval blue sapphire surrounded by a cluster of 14 diamonds, which used to belong to Princess Diana. Charlene’s engagement ring has a 3 carat pear-shaped centre diamond and is embellished with round diamond brilliants. The value of the centre stone in this ring estimated at over $100,000.
Kate and Charlene had something in common. They were both had to meet high expectations from the people of their countries. Everyone expected Kate to be a new Diana Spencer, and Charlene to replace the Hollywood princess Grace Kelly. Supporting these images, Kate’s hen night was just a quiet night in with friends. On the other hand Charlene’s bachelorette party attracted many celebrity guests and its theme was leather and lace.
Flickr by The British Monarchy
At the wedding both brides looked gorgeous. Charlene wore an off-the-shoulder ivory satin Giorgio Armani Prive gown adorned with 40,000 Swarovski crystals, gold and pearl hand embroidery and a 5.5 meter train. Her raindrop shaped bouquet consisted of lily-of-the-valley and dendrobium orchids. Kate was wearing a Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen white dress with a 2.7 metre train and a beautiful tiara borrowed from Queen Elizabeth II. Her shield-shaped bouquet consisted of myrtle, lily-of-the-valley, sweet William and hyacinth.
For the wedding in Monaco BMW provided 200 cars. The Royal couple used a specially built convertible Lexus LS 600h Landaulet hybrid. Volvo supplied 85 cars for the transportation of foreign guests in London. The bride and her father arrived to the church in a Rolls Royce Phantom VI which was modified for the occasion with a transparent roof and rear. The newlyweds left the church in an old fashioned and very romantic way in an open carriage with horses. After the reception the couple left in a 1969 Aston Martin DB6 Volante MKII borrowed from Prince Charles.
Flickr by The British Monarchy
Flickr by The British Monarchy
And it is hard to forget the incredible wedding cakes. Kate and William had two wedding cakes. The main cake was an 8 tier high traditional fruit cake decorated with 900 sugar-paste flowers. The second cake was a special request of the prince. It was a chocolate biscuit cake which contained 1700 Rich Tea biscuits and 17 kilos of chocolate. Charlene and Albert had a massive 5 tier white chocolate cake decorated with South African Proteas flowers.
Both weddings were followed by awesome honeymoons. Katherine and William spent about $690,000 for a 10 days holiday on a private island in Seychelles. Albert and Charlene chose a presidential suite in a slightly less expensive hotel in South Africa. They room cost $7,400 per night.
If you are planning a wedding it might be useful and interesting for you to search the internet for recent celebrity weddings. You may get some interesting ideas for your wedding. In case your wedding budget is modest in comparison to the Royal couples I suggest you to use on-line planning and budgeting tools, such as ones found on www.weddingrewardsclub.com.au.
Reading about beautiful royal weddings made me ask myself what I would change at my wedding if I was as rich as a royalty. I realised that the only thing I would have changed was bringing to Perth all the friends and family members who could not fly here. Everything else we needed for our perfect wedding was already here in WA and cost us thousands times less than what William’s and Albert’s families paid.
