Why Harry’s a no-show at the most exclusive wedding of the year
Britain’s most eligible bachelor is getting married. The heir will be there, but not the spare.
It’s a problem that apparently no amount of money can solve. When you’re friends with two princes who are at loggerheads, which one do you invite to your wedding? This is the conundrum faced by Hugh “Hughie” Grosvenor, the 7th Duke of Westminster, who will marry his fiancee, Olivia Henson, at Chester Cathedral on Friday.
The duke’s £10 billion fortune means that, at 33, he is the richest person under the age of 40 in the UK, according to The Sunday Times Rich List, and the 14th richest overall.
He was 25 when his father, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, died suddenly of a heart attack in 2016. Hugh became one of the country’s wealthiest landowners, as he inherited a property portfolio that spans land in Scotland, Lancashire and 300 acres of prime estate in Mayfair and Belgravia. For years Tatler magazine proclaimed him to be Britain’s most eligible bachelor.
However, the duke may well have realised during the past few months that the universal misery of a wedding seating plan cares not for titles or cash in the bank. For, besides his vast wealth, he is a rare breed in another way. He is one of only a few friends who has remained close to both the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex despite the brothers’ increasingly bitter public feud. The duke’s godfather is the King and, in turn, he is godfather to William and Harry’s eldest sons, Prince George and Prince Archie. But with William and Harry barely able to sit in the same cathedral without visible rage, the royal rift has threatened to overshadow the Westminster wedding. So, which of them to invite?
It is understood that a civilised understanding was reached between the duke and Harry over the phone. It’s a long way to come from California, after all. Harry was invited but then agreed to stay away. The duke’s diplomacy then cleared the way for William to perform the role of usher during Friday’s ceremony - a job that would have been beyond awkward if he was obliged to show Harry to his pew, even though he might enjoy telling him where to go. The Princess of Wales, meanwhile, will stay away as she continues her recovery after revealing this year that she is undergoing chemotherapy.
The King is not expected to attend, either. Charles continues his cancer treatment and will have just returned from the 80th anniversary commemoration of the D-Day landings in Normandy on Thursday.
Nevertheless, it is fast becoming the most royal nonroyal wedding of the year, with members of Britain’s oldest and wealthiest aristocratic families heading north. While the duke is extraordinarily wealthy, a source close to him added: “He isn’t someone who’s drawn towards the limelight. He’s self-effacing in many ways.” They added that he prefers to keep things “low-profile”.
Where the wedding is concerned, however, the 400-strong guest list and a reception at his vast 11,000-acre estate at Eaton Hall, styled on a French chateau, appears to suggest that the “low-profile” ship has sailed. Given the scale of the event, journalists looking to cover the service at the cathedral have been encouraged to apply for official accreditation.
Guests are likely to include several members of the Van Cutsem family, who have been friends with the Windsors for generations. Also expected is Lady Zoe Warren, the aristocratic yoga guru and youngest child of the 14th Earl of Galloway, and her husband, Jake Warren, a godson of Princess Diana and son of Queen Elizabeth II’s racing manager, John Warren.
Guests have been advised not to bring gifts, presumably to cut down on the need for an airport-style security scanner for any large boxes, as much as the very obvious point that this is not a couple in need of a new toaster. The police and local council are sufficiently convinced that there will be enough interest in the billionaire’s wedding that roads close to the cathedral will be cordoned off and barriers erected along the route. Overkill? Maybe. But they’re said to be acting on experience.
When the duke’s sister Lady Tamara married Edward van Cutsem at the same cathedral in 2004, it was dubbed “Chester’s own royal wedding”. Reports at the time estimated that 4,000 well-wishers had turned out in the drizzle to line the streets and peer down from the upper-floor windows of Costa and McDonald’s. Guests included William and Harry - happier times - as well as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. Similarly, the duke’s father’s memorial there was a huge event.
When the duke’s other two sisters got married, they cleverly dodged the spectacle. Lady Edwina Grosvenor married the TV presenter and historian Dan Snow in a private ceremony at Bishop’s Lodge in Woolton, Liverpool, in 2010. Similarly, Lady Viola Grosvenor married the Dragoon Guards officer Angus Roberts in a quiet ceremony and later held a lavish “no shoes, no news” private celebration at the boutique hotel resort on the private island of Manda Bay off the coast of Kenya, which is owned by Roberts’s parents.
As the heir to the family fortune and chair of Grosvenor Group, skipping a public wedding celebration clearly didn’t seem like an option for the duke and his bride, with one person close to proceedings suggesting that it will be “as official as unofficial can be”.
On May 7 the couple marked the one-month-to-go milestone by visiting organisations supported by his Westminster Foundation, which contributes about £7 million a year through more than 200 grants to local charities. The occasion had some of the hallmarks of a formal royal engagement, although the duke admitted with a charmingly unroyal puppyish enthusiasm that he was “unbelievably excited” about getting married, even though he found it all “nerve-racking”.
So that the general public can also enjoy the occasion, the duke has put some money behind the bar, or at least the ice-cream bars. At three independent city centre businesses in Chester the bride and groom will subsidise free ice cream on their wedding day. After years of the image of snooty elitism, could this shift to a “Milky Bars are on me” aristocracy be the future for the British class system?
He is also paying for this year’s summer flowers, the annual blooms that are planted around the city by the council. He is said to be keen to use his position to support the local community in the northwest and to be conscious of what “socially responsible wealth” looks like.
A source close to him said: “The duke has a great personal connection to the area - it is where he grew up. They have made a conscious effort to involve local and regional suppliers to several aspects of their day.” His bride, who attended Marlborough College, the alma mater of the Princess of Wales and Princess Eugenie, will suddenly find herself styled as the Duchess of Westminster, while Hugh’s mother, Tally, who incidentally is godmother to Prince William, will now be known as the dowager duchess.
A modern couple, the pair met through friends after the duke attended Newcastle University. Henson, the daughter of the stockbroker Rupert Henson, is descended from the marquesses of Bristol and the dukes of Rutland, as well as the Hoare banking family, yet she works as an account manager at the ethical food company Belazu.
On announcing their engagement in April last year, the couple released a rare public photo of them standing in a garden in casual clothes. No moody black-and-white social media posts or ballgown magazine cover shoots here. Even the engagement ring has been described as “nothing too flashy”.
The duke’s non-flashy charm and loyalty are likely to ensure that his friendships with William and Harry will continue. It seems he is already planning a trip to California. The billionaire happens to represent Great Britain at the sport of skeet shooting (clay pigeon shooting to you and me) and hopes to compete at the Olympic Games in 2028, when they are held in Los Angeles, not far from the Montecito-based Harry and Meghan.
In the meantime the duke might have another diplomatic hurdle to overcome. If the billionaire and his new wife go on to have a baby, how are they going to choose which godfather to invite to the christening?
The Times
