The Mail’s Richard Eden used his column this week to hype about Peter Phillips’ wedding to Harriet Sperling – which is happening on Saturday – and to give people some vintage gossip. Remarkably, he did not mention the Duke and Duchess of Sussex this week, nor did he drag Harry into the conversation about “who got snubbed for a wedding invitation.” Instead, Eden chose to remember that Prince William skipped Peter’s first wedding back in 2008. Real royal gossips remember why – William traveled to Kenya to attend Jecca Craig’s brother’s wedding that same weekend. To make matters even more interesting, William sent then-Kate Middleton to Peter’s wedding, and that was the first time she met Queen Elizabeth. William wasn’t even there to introduce Kate to his grandmother.

King Charles and Queen Camilla will leave his nephew Peter Phillips’s wedding festivities this Saturday before the guests even have time to raise a toast to the groom and his second wife, Harriet Sperling, at his mother Princess Anne’s Gatcombe Park estate in Gloucestershire. After seeing the 48-year-old exchange vows with the NHS paediatric nurse at All Saints church in the village of Kemble, the royal couple will race off to watch the Epsom Derby more than 100 miles away in Surrey.

I can reveal that one senior member of the Royal Family who will stay for the entire celebration is Prince William. And the reason is most intriguing.

‘William and Catherine will be at the wedding ceremony and reception,’ I am told.

The heir to the throne is keen to make amends for the fact that he failed to attend his cousin Peter’s first wedding in 2008. He went to a different wedding instead – that of an old friend, Batian Craig, in Africa. Batian’s Maasai-themed ceremony couldn’t have been more different from Peter’s first traditional wedding to the Canadian-born Autumn Kelly, at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. In Kenya, brightly-dressed Maasai elders poured milk over Batian and his bride, British-born Melissa Duveen, and offered prayers for long life and happiness.

A senior royal source explained at the time: ‘Prince William is going to be out of the country this weekend on a long-standing prior engagement.’

Batian is the brother of Jecca Craig, to whom William became so close before he went to university that they were rumoured to have had a ‘pretend engagement’ ceremony. At William’s ‘Out Of Africa’-themed 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle three years later, Jecca was guest of honour and was seated next to the prince.

His absence from Peter’s first wedding meant that Catherine attended on her own. It was the first time she had met her then-boyfriend’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, and was seen as a clear sign that her own engagement would be announced soon. In the event, she had to wait a further three years for William to get down on bended knee. He did so at Lewa Downs, the wildlife conservancy in Kenya where Batian’s wedding was held. It was run by Jecca and Batian’s parents, Ian and Jane, in the foothills of Mount Kenya.

Catherine’s presence at Peter’s first wedding meant she ended up appearing in the pages of Hello! because he had sold exclusive photographic rights to the glossy magazine for a reported £500,000. His decision to sign the deal with Hello! caused controversy at the time. The commercialisation of the royal wedding – for the first time in history – upset courtiers who believed the pages of the ‘celebrity bible’ should be confined to WAGs and soap stars.

Catherine was pictured laughing, similarly uproariously, with Prince Harry’s then girlfriend Chelsy Davy, as he made some joke. They were also pictured letting their hair down on the dance floor. This Saturday, William can party safe in the knowledge that Hello! won’t be sold any exclusive photos – as far as we know!

[From The Daily Mail]

First of all, what a fascinating moment for a royalist to actually recall the real history of William and Kate, and to remember William’s connections to Jecca Craig and Jecca’s family. Real ones remember that William also skipped Princess Charlotte’s first Easter (in 2016) because he was in Kenya for Jecca’s wedding too. And who can forget the time he went boar-hunting in Spain with Jecca when Prince George was just a baby? Good times. Good recollection of how many times William has skipped royal-family events to spend time with Jecca and her family.

Also: I would be willing to bet that Peter and Harriet have already sold their wedding photos to Hello! They sold their engagement portraits to Hello last year, why not some wedding pics? It’s basically the only real income Peter has at this point.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.