THE QUEEN’S COUSIN LORD MOUNTBATTEN MARRIES HIS NEW HUSBAND...
For many a couple it is a long and winding road to the altar. For Lord Ivar Mountbatten, a divorced father of three, the path to matrimonial happiness has meant navigating all manner of obstacles that would test the strongest of relationships.
But yesterday, almost exactly two years after coming out as gay, the younger son of the 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven, and cousin of the Queen, was marking the first day of his new life — married to a man.
Twenty-four hours earlier, Lord Ivar and his new love James Coyle exchanged rings and vows in front of 60 family and friends including his three proud daughters.
And the wife he divorced? Why, she gave him away.
Never before, surely, has there been a wedding quite like it — the first ever same-sex marriage in the extended Royal Family.
A gospel choir serenaded them, and the toasts from their two best men saw guests raising flutes of Pol Roger, Churchill’s favourite champagne.
Twenty-four years ago, Princess Margaret was among those present at the grandest of ceremonies when Ivar married his wife Penny at the family’s ancestral home in Essex.
There were no royal witnesses for this latest union, but the goodwill from Ivar’s extended family was flowing. He has received the warmest of congratulations from his lifelong friend Prince Edward.
The honeymoon to Greece or Croatia —the destination has still to be decided— has been postponed until later in the year.
But like everything that has happened to this stylish couple, who chose matching velvet smoking jackets for their black-tie wedding, it has been managed with a reassuringly unflappable cool.
UK, (DAILY MAIL), 24 SEPTEMBER 2018 -