British Royal Wedding

Kate Middleton is set to be trained in royal protocol and media communications ahead of the expected announcement of her engagement to Prince William. The Daily Star reports…

Kate, 27, will not join nWilliam on any official engagements yet. But she will be trained in Palace protocol, how to behave on the engagements and how to deal with the media. She will also learn how royal properties and finances are run and will be given access to the family’s Chequers Committee –  headed by the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles – that controls royal estates.

She will also learn about royal patronage and how members of the family form official attachments to the armed forces.

Courtiers know that both Kate and William, 27, fear she will become a figure of obsessive public fascination once the engagement is announced. “It has the potential to be even more intense than it was for the Princess of Wales,” warned the aide. “But Kate is going to be the best-prepared royal bride ever.”

British tabloid News of the World reports that Prince William has ruled out marriage to Kate Middleton next year because he is too busy…

Instead, he will step up his role as a roving royal with two ground-breaking official tours to South Africa and Australia. The prince is also determined to complete his tough helicopter training course.

His hectic schedule means Kate and Wills – both now 27 – could be approaching 30 before they wed. One high-ranking Palace figure told the News of the World: “All this talk of a wedding next summer is wide of the mark.”

William’s trip to Australia is expected to take place early in the New Year. He will travel to South Africa in June, where he will carry out a series of engagements and attend the World Cup.

Together since 2003, The Telegraph reports that Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall are ready to ‘formalise’ their union…

“I don’t think it is about whether we will get married, but when,” says the England rugby player, who met the granddaughter of the Queen in 2003. “There is no doubt that I love Zara, but it has to be the right time.

“She is so busy competing and I am touring. We often don’t even manage to get away on holiday together. And, yes, it probably would be a white wedding, although sometimes I can see the attraction of sneaking away without telling anyone.”

A friend of the couple’s tells this week’s Hello! magazine;

“He is very good with the children and enjoys all the rough and tumble… Zara is brilliant with the children. She would come over for a coffee sometimes and play with the children. They adore her…”

Britain needs a royal wedding to lift it’s spirits says the Adelaide Advertiser…

In times of adversity, Britons look to the royal family for inspiration. A recent poll found one-in-two people strongly believed Catherine would make an excellent addition to the royal household. William’s popularity rating also is high…

There has been clean-up activity at Harewood Estate near Ross-on-Wye, a property acquired by Prince Charles’s Duchy of Cornwall which has been earmarked as a possible home for William and his bride…

Historically, royal engagements have tended to be announced in February or March and weddings held in summer. With his military commitments, a wedding is unlikely this year.

Read the entire article at The Advertiser (with video)…

According to Monsters & Critics Prince William has told friends he will marry Kate Middleton next year…

The couple – who have been dating for almost eight years – looked happier than ever when they attended the Audi Polo Challenge in Ascot, south west England, on May 10.

A source said: “They are clearly loved-up. It is so sweet to see. Kate was clearly in a great mood and spent a lot of time speaking to all her friends. “The buzz was that Kate and William will make a wedding announcement next year.”

The source claims the pair will announce their engagement next year, and marry in St Paul’s Cathedral next July.

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Prince William will marry his on-off girlfriend Kate Middleton this summer with an official announcement expected ‘imminently’, France’s leading society magazine reports today.

Point de Vue, which has impeccable contacts within royal families across the world, boasts about its front page scoop, saying ‘nobody knows it in the British media.’

Society journalist Antoine Michelland writes: ‘A communiqué is in preparation announcing the marriage between William and Miss Katherine Middleton and it will be published this month.’

Mr Michelland said the announcement was meant to have been made earlier in the year but was postponed.

Point de Vue, an upmarket weekly founded in 1945, specialises in royal stories. Colombe Pringle, editor-in-chief, said she stuck by her star reporter’s William and Kate story ‘100 per cent’.

The magazine points out that the young couple did not go skiing at Christmas, as planned, but instead went to Scotland. On their return, William, 26, proposed around the time of Kate’s 27th birthday celebrations in January.

Mr Michelland is known to have well-placed contacts in other royal families, many of whom will be invited to the wedding and have been told to keep their diaries clear.

Rumours of an engagement have also been fuelled by intense activity in recent weeks on the Harewood Estate near Ross-on-Wye, a property acquired by Prince Charles’s Duchy of Cornwall in 2000 which, it is believed, has been earmarked as a possible home for William and his bride.

Read entire story at the Daily Mail…

A royal wedding is looking increasingly likely; royal correspondents and photographers have been obsessively decoding the dates of official engagements to work out when the free window will be. Many are convinced it will take place later this year.

Even if we have to wait longer, that doesn’t mean much – it’s in the nature of modern couples to break up, get back together and then linger on into their thirties before the church – or abbey – is booked.

In many ways, Kate and William are conducting a classic modern romance. That said, a source close to the prince told me that their brief split was just “a strange stunt to throw off the press”.

Read entire story at The Telegraph…

The Queen has let slip that Prince William and girlfriend Kate Middleton will have a “credit crunch” wedding if they decide to tie the knot.

A senior palace source told the News of the World Her Majesty is “mindful” of the misery caused across the nation by economic meltdown.

And she believes a lavish marriage celebration like Charles and Diana’s, which ran to millions, would not go down well with her struggling subjects.

The aide said: “The Queen knows how the nation is really suffering. A big lavish ceremony would send out all the wrong messages. The last thing she would want is to rub people’s noses in it by spending a fortune.”

“She has made it clear that the massive royal weddings of the past are just that, of the past.” (via News of the World)

Prince Harry fought the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Prince of Wales reached 60 and made his views on GM crops very clear, while Prince William didn’t get engaged and the Diana, Princess of Wales inquest finally came to a conclusion. more at the Telegraph…

Princess Elizabeth marries Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey on the 20th November 1947.