The perfect royal wedding was also a labor of love—and one hell of a party. With behind-the-scenes reports from the Big Day (and night), Katie Nicholl pulls back the curtain on the union of two strong personalities, revealing how William and Catherine kicked off a new era for the monarchy, plus where they’re headed next.

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In November, when the “save the date” was circulated for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding, Elena Nachmanoff immediately booked a trip to London. She was going shopping — for royalty experts.

Ms. Nachmanoff, the executive in charge of talent for NBC News, knew what she wanted: an eminent British historian; a tabloid editor with deep knowledge about the royal family; a person who played a part in Princess Diana’s wedding 30 years ago. And she knew that other television networks wanted the same.

Because every network will be sharing the same camera feeds of the royal wedding on Friday morning, they have competed fiercely to sign up on-air talent in an attempt to make their hours and hours (and hours) of coverage stand out.

The most sought-after pundits have been signed to long-term contracts worth over $100,000; some even have deals with several outlets. The author of one book about the couple, Katie Nicholl, was the subject of a bidding war; she will be simultaneously working for ABC News, CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” and the entertainment newsmagazine “Entertainment Tonight.”

The networks opened their wallets partly out of necessity: there is a long history in Britain of people being paid for interviews, and of giving short- and long-term contracts to experts is one way to meet that expectation. Fortunately, there is no shortage of talent to pick from in England, where reporting, gossiping and opining on the royal family is a full-blown industry.

But the costs have quickly added up for network news divisions, some still understaffed after years of cutbacks. Having sold special advertising packages for the event, networks are betting viewers are as interested in the wedding as their news anchors and producers evidently are.

As soon as the wedding date was set, “you would be shocked by how many e-mails we got from agents pitching their client as the royalty expert because they once saw Prince William, or once met Kate Middleton, or have once had dinner in the same restaurant,” said Rob Silverstein, executive producer of “Access Hollywood,” which is moving to London for a week.

Hollywood agencies including WME, CAA and ICM not only pitched experts for the wedding day, they sold what were effectively packages of experts for the television documentaries that are leading up to the ceremony.

“As long as you have an English accent,” Mr. Silverstein joked, “you’ll work.”

The pitches have not stopped, said Brent Zacky, a vice president at TLC, recounting a New York agent who pitched a “wedding expert” to him just last week. “There’s last-minute jockeying going on,” he said, even for one-time guest appearances.

The guest booking wars “have been ferocious,” said Piers Morgan, the CNN anchor.

But for the most part, each network’s plans are firmly in place. Along with A-list anchors, there will be Britons (the reality show host Cat Deeley will be on CNN), celebrities (Goldie Hawn will be on ABC’s “The View”) and journalists who covered Princess Diana’s wedding in 1981 (the former “Good Morning America” co-host Joan Lunden will be on Fox News).

TLC hired Amanda Byram, a native of Ireland who now lives in Britain and hosts television shows there, because “it’s important to have a local voice alongside our American voices,” Mr. Zacky said, echoing executives at other networks.

Those executives said in interviews that they doubted specific experts would actually sway the ratings on the wedding day.

“For the most part, this is a festivity that you don’t see a lot in life, so you just let it speak for itself,” said Bill Shine, an executive vice president at Fox News. But there are still hours of air time to fill before and after the ceremony.

“The palace has said that no friends can talk, so we have to rely on our knowledge, on our correspondents’ knowledge and experts in different fields,” said Barbara Walters, who will be co-anchoring with Diane Sawyer on ABC. On Friday afternoon, Ms. Walters was packing her bags for London, since many American news programs and entertainment shows will be in royalty mode starting on Monday.

After her first trip in December, Ms. Nachmanoff was back in London at the end of February to firm up NBC’s deals with experts like Camilla Tominey, the royalty editor for the Daily Express newspaper, and Andrew Roberts, the historian.

Perhaps NBC’s biggest coup was signing a long-term contract with Ben Fogle, a British television host who traveled in Africa with Prince William last year and who will be attending the wedding. (He will be hurrying to a camera position outside Westminster Abbey to recount his attendance afterward.) NBC calls Mr. Fogle a “special correspondent” and says he will stay on at least through the Summer Olympics in London next year.

No one would comment on the costs of all this expertise, citing confidentiality, but privately some agents and executives said thousand-dollar appearance fees for a segment were far more common than the six-figure salaries that “special correspondents” have received.

ABC’s biggest booking was probably Ms. Nicholl, whose book “William and Harry: Behind the Palace Walls” was published a week before the wedding date was announced. Like Mr. Fogle, Ms. Nicholl has been deemed a “special correspondent.”

ABC’s other contributors will include Tina Brown, the Newsweek and Daily Beast editor, who has a long-term contract with “Good Morning America;” one of Princess Diana’s bridesmaids, India Hicks; and a former press secretary for Prince William, Colleen Harris.

CBS, which is spending less than NBC or ABC to cover the wedding, has fewer contributors on its payroll. Its top “royal contributor,” Victoria Arbiter, who was raised in Britain but now lives in New York, also has deals with CTV in Canada and Channel 7 in Australia.

Among other experts working for several outlets is Mr. Morgan’s wife, Celia Walden, who writes for The Daily Telegraph. She will be appearing on NBC and “Extra” in the United States as well as on ITN in Britain.

Mr. Morgan, who is British, said what he wants out of his guests on “Piers Morgan Tonight,” his 9 p.m. show on CNN, are personal stories and anecdotes. He said he would be recalling a private lunch he had with Princess Diana and Prince William when the prince was 13 years old. Of the bookings, he said, “It’s less about A-list faces. It’s ‘Do they know the royals or not?’ ”

The royal couple’s closest friends, presumably, will be at the wedding, not at the multistory media complex beside Buckingham Palace.

And that is partly why producers like Mr. Silverstein, of “Access Hollywood,” are having fun with the affair — and with the appointed experts who will be crowding onto television to talk about it. In a nod to Harry Potter, Mr. Silverstein has called his in-house expert, Neil Sean, a “royal wizard.”

“There are royal wizards everywhere,” Mr. Silverstein exclaimed. “They truly materialize anywhere you want them.”

Source: New York Times

N my opinion, certain things definitely do not belong at a wedding: ivy and spider plants, because both seem so clingy, and clinginess is anathema to romance; white stretch Hummers, because they make one think of war; and ex-paramours of either the bride or bridegroom, because they also make one think of war. An ex at a wedding is like a baby on an airplane: a tearful disturbance of one kind or another seems inevitable.

But I’m probably old-fashioned. Or maybe I’m not old-fashioned enough. In the British royal family, which follows rules of etiquette established hundreds of years ago, it’s just fine to invite exes, people who broke your heart or, vice versa, friends with benefits, those you lived with for years — all the “almosts” from your single life.

“Charles probably had a hundred ex-girlfriends at his first wedding,” said Pamela Keogh, the author of “Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn?: Timeless Lessons on Love, Power, and Style.” “He had a real back bench.”

Years later, when Camilla and Charles married, Andrew Parker Bowles, her ex-husband, was a guest.

For better or worse, exes in British royal society are expected to get along — or act as if they do, anyway. “I think it is one of the determining details of the upper-class species that they keep friendly with their exes, once the pain of the breakup heals,” said William Norwich, a special correspondent at Town and Country magazine. “It is custom of the class. Sustaining hostilities is too down-market.”

The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, is one of several publications and online sites reporting that Prince William and Kate Middleton are inviting exes to their wedding, gorgeous exes.

Ms. Middleton is inviting her first boyfriend at the University of St. Andrews, Rupert Finch, a dark-haired, olive-skinned polo player who looks like a Calvin Klein model.

Prince William’s guest list includes four serious ex-girlfriends: Rose Farquhar, Arabella Musgrave, Olivia Hunt and Jecca Craig.

“Rose was his first romance, and they stayed very close,” said Katie Nicholl, the author of “The Making of a Royal Romance: William, Kate and Harry — A Look Behind the Palace Walls.” “She’s part of the ‘glosse posse’ ” (a group of the prince’s pretty, aristocratic friends from Gloucestershire).

Ms. Nicholl added, “But the most significant ex-girlfriend is Jecca Craig, the African heiress who dated William during his Eton years. She’s funny, knowledgeable, pretty and very close to William.” Ouch.

Claudia Joseph, the author of “Kate: The Making of a Princess,” said that inviting an ex to a royal wedding, or being an ex at a royal wedding, was once mostly about showing a stiff upper lip. Exes were polite but as chilly to each other as a castle in winter. “But nowadays, I think William’s ex-girlfriends are genuinely his friends,” she said.

When you’re a member of British society, there’s definitely more incentive to get along and hang out with exes. The world of British royals and their friends is tiny. “You may split up, but if you want to stay in the club, you better get along,” Mr. Norwich said. “You still want to get invited to Ascot.”

Also, in the era of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, it’s shrewd to be extra-considerate to your exes. “It’s a great way to contain gossip sources,” Mr. Norwich said. “Keep your exes close. Like keeping your enemies close.”

Still, who can forget that at Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer’s wedding, Camilla Parker-Bowles, Prince Charles’s ex-girlfriend, was among the guests. She was an ex and an enemy. Ms. Nicholl said it was common knowledge among royal family followers that “Diana went down the aisle famously scanning the pews for Camilla.”

That is not what you want to be doing on your wedding day, whether you’re a commoner or a royal.

“Exes are definitely an anchor from the past,” said Anna Post, a great-great-granddaughter of Emily Post and the author of “Do I Have to Wear White?” “Now, that can be a good, supportive anchor or it can be an anchor that drags you back in time.”

Other people actually enjoy walking down the aisle and making eye contact with all sorts of exes, from all periods of life, their own and their future spouse’s. When Hilary Cooper, a portrait painter in Manhattan, married Chris Crowley, a writer and lawyer, four of his ex-girlfriends were among the guests. “I loved it!” Ms. Cooper said. “They were my new best friends. That’s one of the reasons I loved Chris. He had so many great old girlfriends.”

Ms. Cooper drew the line at his ex-wife, however, and did not invite her. “I was concerned she might have said something in the middle of the wedding, like, ‘I want him back!’ ” she said.

Mr. Norwich thinks it is good medicine to attend the weddings of exes, even exes you still miss a lot and maybe even want back. “One person comes to mind,” he said. “I would probably feel a little melancholy, and then I would go. For me it would be a very healing experience. It would be very mature emotionally and socially to accept the invitation. I wouldn’t want to stay home cranky. That really adds an extra wrinkle to your face.”

Alex Hill, a lighting designer who grew up in London, has been invited to several ex-girlfriends’ weddings, and invited some to his. “It’s a way of saying, ‘Let bygones be bygones,’ ” he said. “ ‘I’m moving on with my life, and I’m sorry you couldn’t come with me.’ ”

Alison Berkley, who writes a column about love and life in the mountains for The Aspen Times in Colorado, is currently planning her own wedding. She is not inviting any exes. “If someone has woken up beside me, I really don’t want them at my wedding, as a courtesy to my future husband,” she said.

Ms. Keogh agrees. “I don’t care if he’s the grooviest guy in the world, no groom wants to see his bride’s former paramours, and vice versa.” She added, “The focus should be on the groom and the bride, without their romantic ghosts hovering around the dessert cart.”

Most people have more romantic ghosts in their lives today than ever before. People stay single longer, and fall in and out of love more often. And breakups have become like cellphones — smaller and lighter, less complicated and more familiar. So maybe it’s time to befriend our romantic ghosts, or find them less haunting anyway. If you are invited to an ex’s wedding, this is Mr. Norwich’s advice: “Let it go, let it go! Go to the wedding, rise above, and maybe you’ll catch the bouquet, or the best man.”

Source: New York Times

There are few in London who know more about the royal family than Katie Nicholl, author of "William and Harry: Behind the Palace Walls" and royal correspondent for the Mail on Sunday newspaper.

And Nicholl says there's a side of Kate Middleton - newly engaged to Prince William - few people outside royal circles know.

"I think she's an awful lot of fun, and she can drink Prince William under the table," Nicholl told "Early Show" co-anchor Erica Hill Wednesday. "I've been at nightclubs with her where I've seen her (drinking with William) and do shot after shot, and she's the one (left) standing and William is the one who's looking totally out of it. So, she's quite a partier.

"I know people think she is very demure and a bit of a wallflower, which she is. But I've always said, don't underestimate this girl. There's a lot to her.

"But she is a lot of fun, and I think she has a reputation being a bit of a Plain Jane. And there's just a lot more to her. Here in England, we haven't seen that much of her. That press conference (with Prince William) at St. James's Palace yesterday was the first time that we've heard her speak, that we've seen her picture, that we've seen her take the stage. … I think she did an amazing job."

Nicholl says she thinks the session "was better than what we were expecting. I certainly didn't expect her to be so confident. I spoke to her before she went up on the stage, and she said she has butterflies. And of course was very, very nervous, but I think she handled it so well. And I know there's always going to be the comparisons with (Princess) Diana (William's late mother), but I think Kate has a confidence about her, and that's largely because the palace had introduced her to royal life from a very early start in their relationship."

"It's going to be hard," Nicholl added, for Middleton to come out from under Diana's shadow, but William will "help hugely." Nicholl says she hopes people give Middleton the leeway to be her own person.

The perception of the Royal Family will also change - for the better - due to Middleton, Nicholl predicts.

"She is middle-class, she's not an aristocrat. She's a real breath of fresh air for the House of Windsor. So, absolutely, she's going to change it, but I think … for the better. She and William … (are) the future of this monarchy, of this House of Windsor. They're going to take it forward into the 21st century, and I think they'll do a great job."

Source: The Early Show