Ellen to make history in all-girl royal wedding
HER paternal grandparents, the Earl and Countess of Harewood, were treated to a wedding reception at St James’s Palace, attended by George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth.
But it seems safe to say vivacious blonde Ellen Lascelles will opt for something much less formal when she takes the marital plunge — with her Australian fiancee Channtel McPherson, known as ‘Chan’.
I can reveal that Ellen, 38, has been joyfully alerting friends about their engagement by posting the news online.
‘On New Year’s Day, Chan asked me to marry her, and turned what was an incredible 2022 into an even more incredible 2023,’ says Ellen.
She is the niece of David Lascelles, 8th and current Earl of Harewood, and elder daughter of David’s youngest brother, Jeremy Lascelles.
‘Two proposals in one day, plus a cat ring to seal the deal until we get a real engagement ring made,’ adds events manager Ellen.
A playful character, she has described herself as a ‘lefthanded free spirit and fulltime dreamer’ and, elsewhere, as a ‘sunchasing vegan snack queen’.
She and her equally glamorous younger sister, Amy, once dolled themselves up in spoof tiaras and offered fitness classes which culminated in lifting a 10kg dumbbell (‘the weight of an average royal corgi’) before Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding.
BUT Ellen is entirely serious about Chan’s proposal, saying she is ‘floating on a love cloud’. To prove the point, she’s posted a snap of herself with Chan — previously manager of Bang-On T-Shirts — looking radiant as they enjoy beach time together.
Theirs will not, of course, be the first samesex marriage within the wider Royal Family. That milestone was notched up by Lord Ivar Mountbatten — greatnephew of Lord (‘Dickie’) Mountbatten.
In 2018, seven years after divorcing Penny Thompson, with whom he has three daughters, Ivar married James Coyle, a Glaswegian airline cabin services director.
But Ellen, who lives in Australia, and Chan, the owner of a design company, will become the first allwoman marital pairing in the royal diaspora.
Like Ivar at the time of his divorce, Ellen also has young children — a sixyearold son and a daughter, four — with her Australian exboyfriend. But the couple never wed, and so her children will not join Ellen in distant line of succession to the throne, in which she occupies 74th place.
Her willingness to defy convention is far from unusual in the Lascelles family.
Her grandfather George caused his cousin, Queen Elizabeth II, great consternation by fathering a son out of wedlock. Even after his subsequent divorce, he was not welcome at court for several years.
His second son, James — Ellen’s uncle — has been even perkier, variously living in a hippy commune, performing at Glastonbury and marrying three times so far — most recently to Nigerian actress Joy Elias-Rilwan, the first black woman to marry into the wider Royal Family.