William could be Duke of Westminster's best man but Harry will miss wedding
This summer Hugh Grosvenor, the 7th Duke of Westminster is due to marry the gourmet food firm executive Olivia Henson. The June wedding will take place at Chester Cathedral, and plenty of British aristocrats will be in attendance.
King Charles is the groom's godfather and will be there along with his wife Queen Camilla with Prince William and Kate also expected to attend.
But it seems Prince Harry and Meghan will miss out on the society wedding despite being close to the groom, who is godfather to their son Archie. The Duke is also Prince George's godfather and it's believed he is the only shared friend of both William and Harry to be chosen as a godparent by both sons.
Sources close to Prince Harry have said that he had been sent a "save the date" notice, but decided it would be "too awkward" to attend.
The Duke of Westminster is godfather to Prince William's son, George (Getty Images)It's thought he had wanted the Sussexes to attend his wedding and at first did intend to include them, but then he decided against it as he did not want to cause tension with the Royals. A spokesman for Grosvenor told The Times: “We are not in a position to comment on the guest list.”
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A friend of William and Harry’s also told the paper: “It’s incredibly sad it has come to this. Hugh is one of very few close friends of William and Harry’s who has maintained strong bonds and a line of communication with both. He wishes they could put their heads together and patch things up, but realises it’s unlikely to happen before the wedding. He wanted to avoid anything overshadowing the day, especially for Olivia, and doesn’t want any awkwardness."
Prince William has known the Grosvenor family all his life and was mentored for years by Hugh's father, so it's thought he could be best manand Prince George - the Duke's 32-year-old godson - could be a pageboy
The Duke of Westminster is thought to be worth £9.8 billion. The Grosvenor Group owns 300 acres in London's wealthiest postcodes in central London, including Belgravia and Mayfair, alongside huge country estates in Cheshire and Lancashire.
Hugh Grosvenor, the seventh Duke of Westminster, 32, who has became engaged to Olivia Henson, at his family home at Eaton Hall in Cheshire (PA)The family art collection features works by Velazquez, Rembrandt and Lucian Freud, and Hugh is thought to possess more land than the King. The family seat, Eaton Hall, was constructed in the design of a French chateau and is situated closeby to the village of Eccleston in Cheshire.
The 10,872-acre estate includes three villages of 435 houses and 15 farms. The family has a 96,000 acre Reay Forest Estate in Scotland, as well as the 23,500 acre Abbeystead Estate in Lancashire and the 37,000-acre La Gargantua estate in Cordoba, Spain.
Meanwhile, 31-year-old bride Olivia is the daughter of stockbroker Rupert Henson and his wife Caroline. She has two siblings - 29-year-old Jasper and 26-year-old Emilia - who are descended from John Manners, the 5th Duke of Rutland. The distant cousins of the Manners sisters, Lady Violet, Lady Alice and Lady Eliza, were referred to as the "bad-Manners sisters" because they often popped up in the tabloid newspapers.
Olivia studied at the Princess of Wales's alma mater, Marlborough College, which has fees of £15,665 a term. She was a contemporary of Prince Andrew's daughter, Princess Eugenie.
She graduated with a 2:1 in hispanic studies and Italian from Trinity College, Dublin. She went on to work for a botanical drinks firm and juice company, and then moved to the ethical food business Belazu.
The couple met through friends in London and dated for two years before Hugh proposed in April.
"The Duke of Westminster and Miss Olivia Henson are delighted to announce they are engaged to be married," a spokesman for the Grosvenor family revealed in a statement. "Members of both their families are absolutely delighted with the news."
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Chester Cathedral, where the wedding will be hosted, is thought to have the "finest medieval choir stalls in existence" and the "best pre-Raphaelite mosaics in the country". It was also the first cathedral in the north of England to have solar panels installed, and is where the groom's sister, Lady Tamara, also married.
Other expected guests include the Duke and Duchess of Kent, Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and Princess Alexandra, the entire van Cutsem clan and the Manners family. But one couple expected not to be at the wedding are the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
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