The bridesmaid Wills teased at Abbey leads godparents
AFTER all the speculation it was simply a collection of their closest friends and relatives, without even a nod to the Royal Family. Here, REBECCA ENGLISH gives her guide to the five people chosen by William and Kate to be Princess Charlotte’s godparents.
DIANA’S NIECE
THE inclusion of Laura Fellowes was universally applauded as another touching reference to William’s late mother Diana, Princess of Wales. Laura, 34, is the daughter of Diana’s elder sister, Jane, and her former courtier husband Robert Fellowes.
William and his cousin Laura do not regularly socialise but were memorably photographed together as youngsters misbehaving at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of York at Westminster Abbey in 1986. Pageboy William stuck his tongue out at bridesmaid Laura, sending Diana into a fit of giggles. Laura married City worker Nick Pettman in 2009 at a wedding attended by both William and Kate.
A former economist, she is currently on a career break working as a teaching assistant in Battersea, south-west London. Known by the nickname Mavis, she is also said to write fiction under the name Mave Fellowes.
MR SENSIBLE
CHOOSING Kate’s cousin Adam Middleton is a rare nod to the Duchess’s own extended family. Fortunately, however, he couldn’t be more different to the so-called black sheep of the maternal line, Carole’s brother Gary Goldsmith.
Loughborough and Cambridgeeducated Adam is the son of Michael Middleton’s brother, Richard, and works as a senior business and recruitment adviser. He was among a family party (that included fellow godparent Sophie Carter) who joined Kate for a 31st birthday trip to the Royal Albert Hall in 2013 to see a performance by Cirque du Soleil. Last year the Duchess watched as Adam wed his interior designer fiancée, Rebecca Poynton.
CALL ME VANS
VANS, as Thomas van Straubenzee is known in royal circles, is one of William’s closest friends – and, intriguingly, numbers Sophie Carter amongst his exes.
He and William were pupils at Ludgrove Preparatory School and, although he went on to Harrow and William to Eton, they have remained close pals ever since.
Like James Meade he was an usher at the Duke and Duchess’s wedding in 2011 and delivered a joint speech with James that had fellow guests rolling in the aisles (but conveniently unable to remember a word of it).
His 2013 wedding to Lady Melissa ‘Missy’ Percy – dubbed the Hogwart’s