Sarah Ferguson will be invited to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in a bid to heal the family rift over her divorce
Sarah Ferguson will be invited to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in a bid to heal the family rift over her divorce.
It was previously believed that the Duchess of York would not be attending the big event at Windsor Castle on May 19.
The mother of Princess Eugenie, who also recently announced her engagement, and Beatrice, was not invited to Kate Middleton and Prince William’s wedding in 2011.
However, Fergie, 58, is attending Prince Harry’s wedding in a bid to heal broken ties caused by her divorce to Prince Andrew.
Kensington Palace is ready to send out invitations to the wedding this week and royal sources have told MailOnline she will be invited to at least ‘part of the day’.
It is not yet clear whether this will be to the ceremony itself, or just to the reception afterwards.
But Harry is keen to ensure that Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie’s mother is there in some way on the day.
The prince is particularly close to Eugenie, who will herself get married at St George’s Chapel on October 12. In fact she was instrumental in introducing him to his previous girlfriend, Cressida Bonas.
Guests will be asked not to buy Harry and Meghan presents, but to donate to a charitable fund instead. William’s wedding fund raised £1million for 26 charities in 2011.
Instead of attending the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011, the Fergie fled to an exotic location.
A month after the wedding, in an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, she revealed she fled the UK for Thailand after never receiving an invite to the wedding.
She said: ‘I was not invited, and I chose to go and be in Thailand in a place called Camelia and…the jungle embraced me.’
Guests will be asked not to buy Harry and Meghan presents, but to donate to a charitable fund instead
Kensington Palace is ready to send out invitations to the wedding this week
Stripped of the Royal Highness title, divorced from Prince Andrew and forced to live a money-grubbing existence which brought her notoriety, many would judge her life since to have been a complete failure.
But in August last year, she found herself back at Balmoral as a guest of the Queen, basking in the lifestyle that could have been hers for keeps — arriving by private jet, surrounded by protection officers and spending her holiday being fawned over by butlers.
However cordial her reception at Balmoral was, the Duchess of York was gone before Prince Philip arrived from Sandringham.
Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, Duke and Duchess of York on their wedding day at Westminster Abbey in 1986
Stripped of the Royal Highness title, divorced from Prince Andrew and forced to live a money-grubbing existence which brought her notoriety, many would judge her life since to have been a complete failure
The Duke of Edinburgh famously vowed never to be in the same room as the Duchess.
Yet she’s made great strides in her self-assured march towards rehabilitation between her and the family – popping up in the Court Circular, hosting Palace parties, attending official engagements as her ex-husband’s other half and issuing media statements.
Kensington Palace today declined to comment on the reports.