Royal Wedding Snub for POTUS: Pres. Barack Obama & FLOTUS Michelle Won’t Be Invited to Prince William’s “Wedding of the Decade”
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on December 17, 2010
Prince William and his fiancee Kate Middleton - Pres. Obama won't be invited to their wedding
Snub across the pond… Pres. Barack Obama isn’t invited to the pending royal wedding in the UK — the highly anticipated “Wedding of the Decade.”
Maybe it was the iPod with his speeches on it that Obama gave to the queen last year?
Or, the UK gift of a bust of Sir Winston Churchill that POTUS gave back?
Or, the insults made against UK dignitaries since Obama took office?
From Mail Online, Snub for Obamas as Royal sources reveal they will not be invited to Prince William’s wedding:
President Obama and his wife Michelle will not be invited to Prince William’s wedding next year.
Because Prince William is not yet heir to the throne, his wedding to Kate Middleton is not classed as a ‘state occasion’ – and the couple feel under no pressure to fill the 2,000-strong guest list with heads of state, the Mail understands.
They are more eager to ask ordinary citizens and charity workers than foreign dignitaries and VIPs to what will be the first royal ‘people’s wedding’, courtiers suggested.
A handful of heads of state are likely to be invited in line with previous royal weddings, possibly including France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni.
But the decision to exclude the American premier and his wife Michelle from the celebrations marks a break from tradition.
Prince Charles and Princess Diana invited then-American president Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy to their 1981 ceremony – though she came alone because the president was too ill to travel following an assassination attempt on him.
A senior courtier said: ‘It is certainly not the case that all foreign heads of state will be excluded. The guest list is still being drawn up and could change, but as things stand it’s right (to say Mr Obama will not be invited).’
A St James’s Palace spokesman said: ‘The wedding will not be a formal state occasion since Prince William is neither the sovereign nor the heir to the throne.’
The decision is an example of William’s single-minded desire to hold the first ever ‘people’s wedding’ by packing the pews with members of the public who have worked with his 21 charities.
And as William and Kate continue to thrash out the plans for Westminster Abbey on April 29, they are understood to be looking towards the Queen and Prince Philip’s austere 1947 nuptials as a template.
With a post-war Government facing huge cuts, the then Chancellor Hugh Dalton said only the decorations in Whitehall and outside the palace could be funded by the taxpayer.
And the Archbishop of York compared the wedding to that of a commoner ‘married this afternoon in some small country church’.
Conscious of the credit crunch and rising unemployment rates, William has vowed to have a wedding that is not as ‘ostentatious’ as his parents’ St Paul’s Cathedral ceremony, with 3,500 guests.
A recent New York Daily News poll shows that not too many people are broken up over the POTUS snub — 69 percent feel that William and Kate are well within their rights to not invite the Obamas.
New York Daily News wedding poll results
From NY Daily News, Prince William and Kate Middleton wedding: President Barack Obama and Michelle not invited, report:
President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, didn’t make the royal cut.
America’s first couple is not on Prince William and Kate Middleton’s list of invitees for what’s being called the “wedding of the decade,” the Daily Mail reported.
Sources told the British newspaper that William and his bride-to-be want to tie the knot in front of ordinary citizens. Because the wedding isn’t an official state event, the couple doesn’t feel compelled to invite foreign dignitaries.
Barack and Michelle Obama met Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip in 2009
From LA Times, Royal snub for the Obamas: No wedding invite from Prince William and Kate Middleton:
Oh, the humiliation. Once not so long ago one of the world’s top celebrities in his own right, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle did not make the cut for invitations to the royal wedding in London next spring.
On April 29 in Westminster Abbey with all the grace and pageantry sure to capture international imaginations, commoner Kate Middleton will marry Prince William, son of Princess Diana. And don’t forget the horsedrawn carriage perhaps.
But the current residents of the White House will not be there, according to the Daily Mail.Prince William of Britain and his fiancee Kate Middleton
The official excuse provided to the British paper by royal sources is that the royal couple wants to share their special nuptial moment with ordinary citizens. Anyway, it is not an official state event, they said. And, you know, Westminster only seats 2,000.
Nice try.
So then how to explain the invites to French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni?
And how to explain the invitations to England-loving President and Mrs. Reagan for the wedding of Diana and Prince Charles back in 1981? And the subsequent invitations to the American first family for the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson five years later?
The Obamas and royal family sure look friendly in the 2009 photo above (well, OK, Prince Philip doesn’t look so cheery).
On that grand occasion in Buckingham Palace, President Obama on behalf of the people of the United States presented the British sovereign with the gift of an iPod. She gave him a photograph framed in silver.
That came a few months after Britain’s visiting Prime Minister Gordon Brown was denied the traditional Oval Office photo op with the American president. And Obama gave Brown a couple of toy helicopters of Marine One and classic American movie DVD’s, reportedly in a format incompatible with British players. Thanks for stopping by.
Such incidents gave rise to silly rumors that Obama carries some kind of vestigial grudge toward America’s traditional ally, possibly because his Kenyan father was a colonial subject of Britain’s until two years after baby Barack’s 1961 birth. And don’t forget those pesky WikiLeak documents showing Obama aides consider the current British prime minister, David Cameron, a lightweight. Isn’t everyone who doesn’t attend Harvard?
One of many headlines in the United Kingdom that announced Prince William's engagement to Kate Middleton last month
Related reading:
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UPDATE, April 29, 2011: Photo series of the royal wedding of Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton.
Royal Wedding Photos — Pre-Wedding Arrivals of Guests, Prince William Arrives at Westminster Abbey
About the author
whatever else might be said about the brits, and the present ethnic socialist mesiah has had plenty of negative comments, (one wonders whether its an inate sense of inferiority)
they certainly have a memory, of things done right, and insults handed out by the socialist lower-orders, exalted beyond their real position in the order of the world.
this guy, might have bought himself a ‘pension-for-life’ but he has left and is leaving a ‘bad-taste’ in the mouths of europe
congrats to harry, for his good taste in wellcome wedding guests
to clarify a point, i made earlier, william and harry, as brothers, have close relationship, and as harry has been where bulletsfly, he has had his say about the ‘yanks’ and their boss who sacks generals because the generals say that the socialist gang in dc, are incompetant. and he has had an input into williams guest list
never mind about it not being a state occasion, william is held closer to the hearts of englishmen, than his ethnic-loving socialist inferior charactered father. and just watch the worlds media make the most of the event.
I’m liking Prince William and Kate more and more. I wish the best for them and hope they have a long, happy marriage.
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Harumph…if President Obama is too much a commoner for attendance at the 2nd in line to the British throne’s wedding, then I am far too much a commoner to watch.
They are not our Royal Family and we have no business being there unless they are peronal friends or involved with those commonwealth countries. We fought a war to be rid of this family.
I think that william and kate should have who they want at the wedding this will be their day not the obamas or anyone else day I do like prince william and kate more and more too and they will have a great life together he makes his mom proud
All I can say is what goes around comes around.
Whether it’s now or later, the Obamas will pay the price for their hedonistic, arrogant ways.