How Will William & Kate’s Wedding Compare to Charles & Diana’s? (not surprising at all)

Princess Diana and Prince Charles’s wedding day in 1981. An invited congregation of 3,500 witnessed the ceremony itself at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Charles, 32, wore the full dress uniform of a naval commander. Unlike her royal fiance, whose every move since birth has been obsessively tracked in the tabloids, life in the media spotlight has proved a new and unsettling experience for 28-year-old Catherine Elizabeth Middleton, born into a comparatively ordinary middle-class family from Bucklebury, in Berkshire. “Prince William” and “Kate Middleton” quickly shot to the top of Twitter’s trending topics, where comments on the social network were mainly congratulatory. But with the help of powerful friends in the royal family Kate Middleton has fought back, sometimes successfully, to maintain a modicum of personal privacy. Charles’ Clarence House office said the heir to the British throne was “delighted to announce the engagement of Prince William to Miss Catherine Middleton.” It said the couple got engaged last month during a vacation in Kenya. “She was captain of the school hockey team and played in the first pair at tennis.” A college master said: “I don’t think you’d find anyone in Marlborough with a bad word to say about her.

Her brother, James, 21, has launched a baking company. For pomp itself, the ceremony is likely to fall between the extraordinary spectacle of Charles and Diana’s 1981 wedding in St. Paul’s Cathedral and Charles’ subdued second marriage to Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall at Windsor Guildhall in 2005. The date avoids London’s Summer Olympics and the queen’s Diamond Jubilee, both being held in 2012.

It marked the first time the Middletons had been invited to such an intimate royal gathering. Other supporters took a more positive view. Her parents worked for British Airways before founding Party Pieces, a successful party-supply business. Kate & William,” also quickly sprang up to congratulate the couple. Wedding venue Recent speculation about the site of the event has focused on Westminster Abbey, where the funeral for the prince’s mother, Princess Diana, was held in 1997. Speculation of an engagement was sparked in February 2006, when it was suggested she would receive her own royal security, which would only be available following an engagement. But the palace remained mum on details. Video: Prince William, Kate Middleton engaged! (on this page) For pomp itself, the ceremony is likely to fall between the extraordinary spectacle of Charles and Diana’s 1981 wedding in St. Paul’s Cathedral and Charles’ subdued second marriage to Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall at Windsor Guildhall in 2005. Media scrum Rumours of an engagement reached a peak around the time of Kate’s 25th birthday in January 2007, when the media scrum took up residence outside her Chelsea home. In 2007, Middleton filed a harassment complaint against a British newspaper. Couple’s courtship William, who is second in line to the throne after Charles, once told an interviewer he wouldn’t marry “until I’m at least 28 or maybe 30.” He turned 28 in June.

The Mirror issued a public apology and the complaint was withdrawn.