Will William make it to the wedding of old flame Jecca?

THE Duchess of Cambridge managed to avoid attending the London wedding of Prince William’s first university girlfriend, Olivia Hunt, at the weekend because of a conveniently timed family skiing trip to France.

But Kate may struggle to prevent her husband joining friends at another wedding at Easter, even though it will take place more than 6,000 miles away.

Jessica ‘Jecca’ Craig (pictured), 34, who became so close to William when they were teenagers that they reportedly had a ‘pretend engagement’, is to tie the knot with conservationist Professor Jonathan Baillie in Isiolo, Kenya, on March 26.

While the trip to Africa might seem unlikely for William, 33, whose daughter, Princess Charlotte, is just ten months old, his relationship with Jecca’s family is so important that he attended her brother Batian’s 2008 wedding in Africa, rather than that of his own cousin, Peter Phillips, the same day.

The wedding will take place on the 55,000-acre wildlife reserve run by Jecca’s father, Ian Craig, in the foothills of Mount Kenya. It is where William spent part of his gap year before university and where he returned for the holiday on which he proposed to Kate.

Jecca has the distinction of being t he only woman before Kate Middleton to have provoked an official bulletin about Wills’ love life.

In 2003, Prince Charles’s staff issued a statement in which it was denied the couple were in a relationship.

They had never done this for any of William’s other alleged girlfriends, prompting speculation there may have been some truth in the rumours.

Shortly after, Jecca was seated next to the prince at his ‘Out Of Africa’ 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle.

In an interview, he insisted he did not have a steady girlfriend at St Andrews, where he had first met Kate two years earlier.

It was not until 2004 that he was happy to be photographed with Kate. Jecca’s family helped encourage t he prince’s commitment to saving endangered African wildlife, which continues to this day. Her Canadian fiancé is director of conservation at the Zoo logical Society of London and worked with William on one campaign. A Kensington Palace spokesman says: ‘We have no comment to make.’