A question of who walks you up the aisle

BRIDE Alexandra Knatchbull, great-granddaughter of Earl Mountbatten of Burma, walked up the aisle at her wedding to Thomas Hooper on the arm of close family friend Prince Charles. Her father Lord Brabourne was present at the ceremony yet the Prince of Wales did the honours.

The family had been thrown into disarray when Lord Brabourne left his wife, the bride’s mother Penelope, and had a four-year affair in the Bahamas with a fashion designer. On his return to the UK he was given a converted barn to live in on the family’s Broadlands estate.

If only all divorced couples striving to put on a united front at their offsprings’ weddings could fall back on the heir to the throne as aisle walker in chief, allowing unusual arrangements to be ascribed to protocol and face saved.