Who were the Princess of Wales's bridesmaids? It's a question that might come to mind if you think back to that special day in 2011.
With so many traditions and protocols that the Royal Family adhere to it’s not surprising that many of us find ourselves with a few questions when we look ahead to the future of the monarchy. From the matter of whether Queen Camilla could succeed King Charles to if Pippa Middleton will get a title, there’s often uncertainty about what lies in store. However, the past often sparks curiosity too and there were so many details at the Prince and Princess of Wales’s wedding you might not have taken in at the time. The future King and Queen tied the knot on 29th April 2011 in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey that was watched across the world.
The bridal party had several members, though Pippa Middleton wasn’t technically a bridesmaid. With the Prince and Princess of Wales’s 13th wedding anniversary approaching next month, here’s all you need to know about who Kate’s bridesmaids were, how many she had and why Pippa wasn’t one of them.
Who were Kate Middleton’s bridesmaids and how many did she have?
Kate had four bridesmaids at her wedding to Prince William in 2011, though they are sometimes reported as being flower girls as none of the bridesmaids were adults. Only one member of the immediate Royal Family was part of the Princess of Wales’s bridal party and that was Lady Louise Windsor, Prince William’s cousin. Lady Louise was seven at the time of the Royal Wedding. Now 20, she has gone on to follow in both Kate and Prince William’s footsteps by studying at the University of St Andrews.
Lady Louise might have been the only close royal relative to be a bridesmaid, but the wider family was included too. Lady Margarita Armstrong-Jones was another of Kate’s bridesmaids and she is the granddaughter of the late Princess Margaret and daughter of the Earl of Snowdon.
Lady Margarita was the oldest of the bridesmaids at eight years old. In recent years she’s been spotted with her father at several high-profile royal occasions, including Queen Elizabeth’s funeral service and King Charles and Queen Camilla’s coronation.
The third bridesmaid, Grace van Cutsem, is someone who many fans might recognise instantly for the particularly iconic part she played in photographs taken on the Buckingham Palace balcony after the ceremony. Grace was just three when she attended one of the biggest royal events in recent history and it seemed like she maybe got a little overwhelmed.
She was pictured looking a little upset and covering her ears as the newlyweds waved at the crowd. Grace is Prince William’s goddaughter and the daughter of Hugh and Rose van Cutsem. One of Queen Camilla’s grandchildren, Eliza Lopes, was the fourth bridesmaid at the Prince and Princess of Wales’s wedding. This was a lovely way to include Queen Camilla’s family in the day too and she was three like Grace at the time.
King Charles was pictured gently holding her on the balcony so she could see everything that was going on and Queen Camilla and Carole Middleton were also sweetly seen pointing things out to her. Like Lady Louise and Lady Margarita, Eliza also paid her respects at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth and attended her grandmother and the King’s coronation last year.
Why wasn’t Pippa Middleton a bridesmaid?
It might come as a surprise to some fans looking back given how prominent a role Pippa played in the wedding, but she wasn’t actually a bridesmaid. As we know, she didn’t go unacknowledged on this life-changing day and Pippa wasn’t a bridesmaid because Kate chose for her sister to be her Maid of Honour instead. Getting candid previously with Express.co.uk, founder and director of Lavinia Stewart-Brown Events, Lavinia Stewart-Brown expressed her opinion that having a Maid of Honour is more of an American tradition that Kate adopted.
"It’s becoming more and more popular to stray from traditional wedding conventions, with a number of couples choosing to break the rules to make their big day their own," she said. "The Princess of Wales, for example, chose to break royal convention by introducing an American tradition by having her sister, Pippa Middleton, as her maid of honour."
As well as Kate perhaps admiring this more American tradition and wanting to give her sister a stand-out role just for her, it’s also been suggested that traditionally, bridesmaids at royal weddings tend not to be adults.
This was the case with the final choice of bridesmaids at the Prince and Princess of Wales’s wedding. This was also true of Prince Harry and Meghan’s bridesmaids at their wedding in 2018 and those at Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank’s wedding that year. However, Kate seemed to have set a new royal trend by making Pippa her Maid of Honour as Princess Eugenie later did the same for her sister Princess Beatrice.
Was Kate a bridesmaid at Pippa Middleton's wedding?
Like the Princess of Wales, Pippa didn’t appear to have any adult bridesmaids at her wedding ceremony and so it looks like Kate wasn't a bridesmaid. It’s not known whether Kate was a Maid of Honour or Matron of Honour instead when Pippa married James Matthews in 2017.
She was certainly seen helping Pippa with her gorgeous wedding dress and also helping with the bridesmaids and page boys, which included her own children Princess Charlotte and Prince George. Since Pippa’s wedding was a private day and not a state occasion like Kate and Prince William’s wedding, we will probably never know the specific role her sister played on this special day.
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