Never-before-seen photograph of Wills and Kate shows their excitement at engagement

By Lydia Warren


Relaxed and looking forward to their big day, the Mario Testino portrait of Prince William and Kate Middleton, as she was then


With wide smiles, they can barely conceal the excitement of their newly-announced engagement.

In this never-before-seen photograph, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge appear close and relaxed – thrilled by thoughts of their impending big day.

The photograph, taken by Mario Testino, graces the July cover of Vanity Fair.


It includes further portraits by Testino, such as the iconic picture of Princess Diana in 1997.

The Peruvian photographer took William and Kate’s engagement pictures at St James’ Palace last November.

Though William, Prince Harry and the Prince of Wales have all turned to Testino for pictures to commemorate milestones, the celebrated fashion photographer had never before captured Miss Middleton.

But speaking the Mail On Sunday's Katie Nicholl for the accompany interview in U.S. Vogue, he said he already felt ‘very confident’ she would be an ‘easy sitter’ because of her natural grace.

And last week, speaking at a gala in his honour in New York, the 56-year-old said he understood why he was chosen to take the photographs.

Testino, a close friend of Diana’s, said: ‘I guess it was a way for them to keep William’s mother in the whole process of it.’

Despite the pressure of the shoot, Testino said the Duchess ‘looked fabulous’ and that the couple exuded ‘sheer happiness’.

He added: ‘They are a young couple in love.’

Portraits: Mario Testino (left) took Prince William and the then Kate Milddleton's official engagement picture (right) in 2010


The edition will lift the lid on the couple’s house-hunting and who does the chores around their Anglesey home.

It describes the pair’s giggles as they watched their nuptials back on television, and recounts the moment Michael Middleton realised the relationship was serious – when Prince William arrived at his Berkshire home by helicopter.

It also recalls the rather surprising requests the pair had for their honeymoon suite – including Philadelphia cream cheese and Brussel sprouts.

The July issue of Vanity Fair will be on news-stands on June 3, ahead of the newly-weds’ trip to Canada and California in July.



source:dailymail

Comparisons between Princess Diana Spencer & Kate Middleton | Princess Diana Spencer Rare Photos | Kate Middleton Rare Photos | Kate and Diana

Kate Middleton Hot Pics, Images, Photos, Collection

Kate Middleton Cute Photo Collection....

Kate Middleton Hot Pics and Photos

"Kate Middleton" | Last Birthday As a Commoner before Wedding of Kate Middleton

The office of William and his father Prince Charles,Clarence House,refused to give any details of how Middleton would mark her big day, saying only that she was spending it "privately."

British media said that Kate who is five months older than her royal fiance was expected to enjoy low-key festivities with her family and friends as she prepares for her April 29 nuptials.


Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine, a publication focusing on the royal family said"She will probably want to keep a low profile because the rest of her life will be high profile,"
"There are a lot of parties coming up so she might just want some really, really close friends and family with her or it could be just her and William."
Prince William is serving as a Royal Air Force search and rescue helicopter pilot in Anglesey, Wales.
The couple were seen in public on Saturday at the wedding of one of William's friends, with Kate sporting a tailored black velvet coat, a black dress with a plunging sheer neckline and a jaunty black beret.
William was an usher for the wedding in the northern village of Boroughbridge of Harry Aubrey-Fletcher, a schoolmate from the prince's time at the elite Eton College, and Louise Stourton.

The News of the World tabloid, Britain's biggest selling newspaper, focused instead on whether or not the country's future queen was wearing a bra.

William and Kate earlier this week released new details of the plans for their wedding at London's Westminster Abbey, including that they would be married by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
They will also make a procession in a horse-drawn carriage through some of the capital's most historic sites after they have tied the knot

Wills paid £200 for Kate to be his 'slave': Former housemate reveals couple's university chemistry

By Louise Eccles


Lady-in-waiting: Kate Middleton as a first-year student at St Salvator's Hall at St Andrews - Prince William reportedly paid £200 her to be his 'slave' in a charity auction


She first captivated her prince when she strutted down the catwalk in a sheer dress.

Or so the story goes.

In reality, Kate Middleton had won Prince William’s affections months earlier when he paid £200 for her during a ‘slave’ auction at a Harry Potter-themed party.


The fascinating new insight into the early days of the royal romance comes from a former housemate of the couple, who is releasing a song about her memories of the pair as students.

Laura Warshauer lived with the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in St Salvator’s Hall during their first year at St Andrews University, and watched them fall in love.

Her song – titled To Will and Kate, Meet Me at Exit 109 – paints a picture of a fun-loving couple who joined in with a huge foam fight in the quad, drank wine out of plastic cups from Woolworth’s and sat on the floor to eat lasagne with fellow students.

Los Angeles-based Miss Warshauer also revealed how the couple had instant chemistry and had fallen for each other months before the now well-documented fashion show in March 2002 when William saw Kate modelling a see-through slip and described her as ‘hot’.

Miss Warshauer said: ‘One of my favourite memories was in November of [first] year and we were invited to a Harry Potter party at this castle.

‘We all got on a big bus to go there and I remember Kate and William dancing together all night.

‘There was a charity auction where you could bid for the person for the day and Will paid £200 for Kate. She was dressed in school uniform and was stood on these stone steps with us all below.

‘No one else was winning Kate that night. They already had that connection.’

Student digs: Kate, in a pink top, eats lasagne from a paper plate on her lap

Young couple: Prince William and Kate Middleton in snaps from their time at St Andrews

Kate and Laura Warshaeur as students - Laura lived with the future Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at St Andrews University


She added that all their friends expected the pair to end up together. ‘They always had such natural chemistry and it was obvious that Will had his eye on Kate,’ she said.

‘I remember a college party with Will and Kate very early on during freshman year.

‘A girl went over to Will and wouldn’t leave him alone. She was trying to entice him, and was being relentless. He was being very polite to her, but at the same time, it was obvious he wished she would leave him alone.

‘A group of us were standing around watching all this unfold and wondering how to help Will out of this awkward situation.

‘Suddenly, Kate just walked up to Will in the most natural way and put her arms around him.

‘It gave Will the opportunity to turn to the other girl and say, “I’m sorry, I have a girlfriend,” while gesturing towards Kate.

‘Will then turned to Kate and mouthed in an exaggerated way, “Thank you”. She was the only girl in the room who could have pulled that off so effortlessly.’

Prince William and Laura Warshauer pose for a photograph during their St Andrews days


The music video shows several pictures of Miss Warshauer with the couple, and the track includes the lyrics: ‘Here’s to Will and Kate, on your wedding day. I remember living in the freshman dorm with you.

‘Paper plates and plastic forks we sat on the floor, drinking wine out of plastic cups from Woolworths.’

The ‘Exit 109’ in the title refers to where she grew up in New Jersey.

The 27-year-old insists she is not cashing in on her friends and simply writes about ‘special memories’.

She said: ‘They are both such incredibly warm, down-to-earth people who genuinely care about others.

‘One night I was little upset about something, and Kate so sweetly put her arm around my shoulders, asked what was wrong and said “I hate seeing people I care about upset”.

‘We drifted apart like so many students after I returned home to go to New York University, but I would love to meet up again one day.’

Miss Warshauer’s single is out now on iTunes. Her album, The Pink Chariot Mixtape, will be released on June 14.

In line to the throne: Kate with friends at her halls of residence


source:dailymail

At home with... Her Royal Pie-ness: A taste of Kate's life in Anglesey

By Jan Moir


The only places where the Duchess of Cambridge is seen regularly all over Anglesey is inside the island's supermarkets, such as the Menai branch of Waitrose where she was photographed happily pushing a trolley


Around the same time that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge alight from their private jet and step on to the white sands of one of the 100 islands of the Seychelles, my gumboots crunch on to the white cliffs of Anglesey. Royal tour, here I come — even if I have to design the route myself.

This far-flung and rain-lashed island, off the north coast of Wales, has been home to the royal couple for more than a year.

Yet very little is known about their lives here, where Prince William is stationed at the RAF Valley base on the south-west coast of the island as a search and rescue helicopter pilot.


In the nearby town of Rhosneigr, local pleasure in this remarkable fact is depicted in a poster staked into a plot of land near the base. ‘If You Need Rescuing On Anglesey, We Do It By Royalty,’ it boasts.

And they are right to be so proud. Drift too far from shore on your li-lo in these parts, and there is a very real chance that an actual prince will come clattering overhead to your rescue, adding a surreal, fairytale element to what is serious and dangerous work.

The royal couple live quietly in a large but isolated farmhouse, where dutiful Kate runs baths to welcome William home from his 24-hour shifts.

According to one local butcher, she also likes to bake him meat pies, bubbling with her own home-made gravy, cooked from scratch. Well, I say. I never had the new Duchess down as a pastry crimper and pie maker.

‘Me neither,’ said the butcher. ‘But she is a good shopper, she knows what she is doing. She was in here after the wedding and she bought some meat and 82p of lamb’s liver to make the pie gravy. I said: ‘Are you sure you can afford that?’ And she said: “I can now.” ’

Half a world away, as the newlyweds settle into their £4,000-a-night private villa, complete with butler and yoga pavilion, my tour begins as I head down a coastal path towards the tiny beach at Rhoscolyn, into the teeth of a bone-shaking wind and lightly driving rain.

Anglesey is so bracing! How can Wills and Kate bear to be away? Who needs frondy palms and the balmy pamper of the Indian Ocean when you’ve got the grey squall of the Irish Sea at your elbow and blue hills of Snowdonia on the horizon? Well, sometimes on the horizon, at any rate.

As the local saying goes; if you can see the mountains, it’s about to rain, if you can’t see them, it’s raining.

By the time William and Kate are uncorking the honeymoon champagne, I am popping the cap on my Thermos of tea and unwrapping some cheese sandwiches.
Do Wills and Kate do this, too, I wonder?

Certainly, Rhoscolyn was one of the named tables at their Buckingham Palace dinner reception following the wedding. The couple had designated tables after places that were important to them, such as St Andrews, Bucklebury and Tetbury. Rhoscolyn clearly has some romantic resonance for William and Kate, but what could it be?
Pondering this, I hardly notice the black labrador that gallops across the sand towards my picnic, then snaffles all the sandwiches before anyone can stop him. To add insult to injury, he takes a slurp from my mug of tea as well.

Ha! Isn’t this the very essence of the British seaside experience; rain and discomfort, closely followed by calamity? Look at what you are missing back home, Wills and Kate!

On a hill behind the beach sits the White Eagle pub, a favourite haunt of the royal couple. The large, refurbished site is owned by the Timpson family of Leeds, the famous shoe shop dynasty who have a holiday home nearby. With its sun terrace and daily changing menus, the Eagle is also frequented by RAF officers and has enjoyed a burst of popularity following some much-publicised royal patronage.

Indeed, on the day of my visit, the kitchen has already run out of chunky chips and the chef has taken time out to be photographed by a newspaper.

Now this is not exactly Wills & Kate mania, but such is the potency of their public appeal at the moment that even serving the couple dinner seems to be a passport to a kind of fame. However, once I’d read the details of the chef’s lamb special — cooked with blue cheese and raspberry sauce — I decided his photo should end up on a police poster rather than in a newspaper. Wanted — For Crimes Against Welsh Lamb.

Jan Moir has a cuppa on Rhoscolyn beach. Who needs frondy palms of the Indian Ocean when you've got the grey squall of the Irish Sea at your elbow and blue hills of Snowdonia on the horizon?


‘Oh, we’ve had the press and TV crews in here every day since the Royal Wedding,’ a friendly member of staff tells me.

‘It’s crazy really. I mean, with all this attention, I doubt that William and Catherine will ever come back again.’

At these prices, I wouldn’t be surprised. £10 for a plate of ham broth! It’s probably cheaper to eat in the Seychelles.

Just a few miles north of here lies Trearddur Bay, where the royal couple launched the Hereford Endeavour lifeboat at the local RNLI station last February. This lovely spot, popular as a retirement haven, will go down in royal history as the place where the Duchess of Cambridge performed her first-ever official engagement.

Here, in what looked like a gale force nine wind that turned her hair into a Jedward-style beehive, Kate Middleton launched her own royal career as well as that of the lifeboat.

Her nervous but sincere smiles had the stamp of someone who is going to go the distance. And Mr Aubrey Diggle, the local RNLI Lifeboat Operations manager, reports that there was a surge of attention following the event.

‘We’ve had more interest from local groups who want to visit the station and have a look around. It raised our profile that way,’ he says.

Well, everything helps. Today, the polls close on a vote to determine which local landmarks will make it on to a special new Isle of Anglesey Edition of the Monopoly board game — just one of the ways the island has been put on the map since William and Kate made this place their home.

And it says something about the couple that they have chosen to live tucked away on this island, as quietly as possible. They have a mutual lack of airs and graces that does them credit. And the fact that they never stand on ceremony nor ask for special favours has made them very popular here.

‘Oh, people here really like them. They adore them. They are such a nice, normal couple, everyone will tell you that,’ one local told me.

‘They can come and go as they please. William bombs around on his Ducatti motorbike, Kate goes to the shops. Nobody bothers them, everyone is so pleased they are here. It’s not like when Prince Charles went to South Wales and nobody liked him there. This is an entirely different situation.’

The royal couple live quietly in a large but isolated farmhouse, where dutiful Catherine runs baths to welcome William home from his 24-hour shifts


Yet while William has the excitement and routine of his RAF work to keep him busy, what is life like on Anglesey for Kate? Surely it must be lonely in their remote farmhouse? After all, there are only so many pies you can make in a week, no matter how dizzy with newlywed love you might be.

Look around, and there are few traces of her anywhere. There is much to do for the active sportswoman on the island, yet there have been no glimpses of the Duchess windsurfing or parasailing on any of the beaches. If she walks or jogs, she does it well out of sight, with only her protection officers for company.

Apparently the farmhouse is equipped with a gym and treadmills, and it is kind of sad to think of her trotting alone inside, like a battery hen on manoeuvres.

Elsewhere, she is never seen tending to her luxurious locks in the local hair salons, such as Curly Tops in Valley, Head First in Llannerch-y-Med, Trimmers in Llangefni or the succinctly named Hair in downtown Bangor, on the mainland.

There is excellent bird-watching all over Anglesey, plus kick boxing and belly dancing classes in most major towns — but so far, it’s been a royal no-show.

In the yachty haven of Beaumaris on the south-east of the island, the Duchess is yet to be seen perusing the racks of sherbet-coloured fleeces in the local shops. Yet here, where the local baker sold out of gingerbread crowns — complete with Jelly Tot jewels — and Union Jack cupcakes on the day of the Royal Wedding, William and Kate do sometimes eat at the Bull’s Head in the main street.

This is a handsome pub with an award-winning brasserie selling nan bread pizzas and Thai spiced fish. Sadly, my lunchtime visit there was curtailed by the traditional British catering welcome, always delivered with a jaunty lack of regret. ‘Sorry. The kitchen closes at two.’

One suspects these carefree times on Anglesey may turn out to be some of the happiest days of their lives


Strangely enough, the only places where the Duchess is seen regularly all over Anglesey is inside the island’s supermarkets. Shortly after her wedding, she was photographed happily pushing a trolley in the Menai branch of Waitrose, which has a big stand of Welsh specialities just by the door.

‘She’s in here all the time. She’s been shopping here for over a year. She walks up and down the aisles and queues up to pay and nobody bothers her,’ a Waitrose worker said.

For security reasons — or perhaps for variety, who knows? — the Duchess actually shops all over; in the branches of Spar and Morrison’s at Holyhead, in the other Waitrose in Bangor. The excitement never ends.

She and William were once caught on security cameras buying pizza and frozen chips at the branch of Spar at the Valley crossroads; though to be fair, there’s not much of a selection in there.

For all that, one suspects these carefree times on Anglesey may turn out to be some of the happiest days of their lives. The couple are free to do as they please; she can skip about in her jeans and ballet flats, he can have a quiet pint with his RAF colleagues in the discreet local pubs. The ordeal and tribulations of one day being King and Queen seem a long way off.

Now, Anglesey may lack the glamour of London or Highgrove, but it is beautiful. The sea is everywhere and always different. Big windsurfer waves roll in at Rhosneigr, powerful whitecaps crash against the cliffs at South Stack, far below the puffin nests and the wheeling guillemots. And when the sun does come out, it blesses the area with luminous light, casting shadows on beaches edged with dogrose and the reed-fringed wetlands long into the evening.

On nights like this, Prince William drives home to his bride through sunken lanes where the hedgerows flutter with hawthorn and elderflower blooms, far away from the pressures of the world that await him.

No wonder they love it here. So come home soon, Wills and Kate. It’s all happening here! In the past few days alone, for example, the local papers have been buzzing with news.

Andrea Jones from the town of Bethesda claims to have seen the image of Jesus on her boyfriend’s garden shovel.

‘Just about everyone who has seen it has said, oh my God,’ she told the Bangor & Anglesey Mail.

Cherry plum tomatoes are on special offer at Lidl, Waitrose have got a fresh delivery of new spring vegetables.

Former weathergirl Sian Lloyd is coming up to perform an opening ceremony, and the first female Archdruid has just been crowned and installed as the new head of the Anglesey Gorsedd of Bards.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.


source:dailymail

'It was so difficult': Fergie reveals her hurt over Royal Wedding snub

By Daily Mail Reporter


Hurt: Sarah Ferguson told Oprah Winfrey she watched the Royal Wedding on television from Thailand


Sarah Ferguson has spoken for the first time about the House of Windor's decision to not invite her to last month's royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

The Duchess of York, 51, instead went to Thailand where she watched the coverage on television.

She was disappointed she wasn't able to accompany her daughters, Princess Beatrice, 22, and Eugenie, 21, who attended the wedding with their father Prince Andrew.

'I was not invited,' Ferguson, 51, who was caught up in a scandal last year after she was taped offering access to Prince Andrew for $724,000, said on The Oprah Winfrey Show.


'I went through the phase of feeling so totally worthless and that [it] was quite right they didn't invite me. Why would they - why would they invite me?'

She continued: 'I felt that I ostracised myself by my behaviour, by the past, by living with all the regrets of my mistakes, that I sort of wore a hair shirt and beat myself up most of the day thinking and regretting why did I make such a mistake? Why have I made so many mistakes?'

'I chose to go and be in Thailand in a place called Camelia... the jungle embraced me,' she explained.

'So difficult': Fergie was disappointed she couldn't join her daughters Eugenie and Beatirce at the ceremony

The snub 'was so difficult,' the former royal said, 'because I wanted to be there with my girls... to be getting them dressed and to go as a family.'

She added: 'Also, it was so hard, because the last bride up that aisle was me.'

Ferguson revealed she was in contact with her former husband, whom she married at Westminster Abbey in 1986, throughout the day.

'When Andrew went with the girls, we were talking all morning and he was saying, "It's okay. Just remember we had such a good day. Our wedding was so perfect." Because we're such a unit together. He made me feel very part of the day on April the 29th.'

'I really love the feeling that sort of Diana and I both weren't there,' Ferguson, who has often spoken of her close bond with with the late princess, told Oprah.

'But I'm here to say how proud she would have been and Kate looked utterly
beautiful.'

'I think Diana would be so proud of her son. Both of them, you know? They did a great job.'

Ferguson is to have a show on Winfrey's new cable station, OWN.

Her interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show will air in the U.S. tomorrow.

Royal affair: Fergie said Diana would be 'so proud of her son'


source:dailymail

William larks around on a boat in Ibiza with Kate and the Middleton clan in never-before-seen pictures

By MAIL ON SUNDAY REPORTER

Athletic in Ibiza: Pippa Middleton performs a flawless backflip in to the warm waters of the Mediterranean as an admiring Kate looks on from the stern of the motor yacht


They were carefree days before the world became entranced by their every movement.

This is Kate Middleton and her sister Pippa as they've never been seen before, enjoying an exuberant holiday in Ibiza with their family and Prince William.

Taken in 2006, these previously unseen pictures capture a fleeting moment in the lives of the couple when they could behave like ordinary twentysomethings, unencumbered by the responsibilities they now carry as the new stars of the Royal Family.



Playful: Pippa climbs back aboard as William jokingly grabs Kate; right, the sisters relax on deck, with Kate using her camera


Sunshine days: William, in red shorts, with Pippa (left), Carole, in green bikini, and other holiday guests


They show the Prince larking around with Kate and Pippa, the girls' mother Carole and their brother James on a boat belonging to Carole's brother Gary Goldsmith during a week-long sunshine holiday to Ibiza.

Pippa shows off her athletic prowess -- and her enviably toned physique -- performing a backwards dive into the sea.

Kate, who also looks stunning in her white bikini, is content to stand back and watch.


Heir in the air: Watched by Carole, Kate, James (in the patterned shorts) and Pippa, William attempts a backflip from the boat...


... but the young royal finishes with an ungainly belly-flop into the water


Making waves: The Prince failed to match Pippa's graceful aquatic display


Carole, who won admiration at the wedding for her elegant appearance, also reveals a youthfully trim figure in an emerald green bikini.

Meanwhile, in his red swimming shorts, William could be any young man eager to impress his girlfriend by performing a backflip -- which somehow turns into a belly-flop by the time he hits the water.


Her Royal Hotness: Pippa in her bridesmaid's dress at her sister's wedding


The pictures reveal the extent to which the Middletons invited William into the heart of their family.

During their week in Ibiza, they stayed at Gary's £5million villa, dubbed 'La Maison de Bang Bang'.


source: dailymail