[T]he bunting’s been put up; souvenir mugs purchased; we all have an extra day’s holiday; and all the participants have been practising for months. So what could possible go wrong?

Well, if the track records of Royal weddings have anything to go by, quite a bit.

Lady Diana Spencer at her marriage ceremony in St. Paul’s Cathedral referred to her husband to be as Philip instead of Charles, was she thinking he was her future father-in-law?

When Charles’ mum was married in 1949 at Westminster Abbey the future Queen’s bouquet went missing. It was eventually discovered in a refrigerator where it had been put by a helpful footman to keep it fresh. Later that day Prince Michael of Kent while serving as a page boy charged with carrying the bride’s train tripped and fell over.

When George IV first clapped eyes on his future bride, so shocked was he by her physical appearance was he, that he demanded a large brandy. Clearly the drinking didn’t stop, for on their wedding night Caroline complained he was horribly drunk and smoked a pipe in bed. She later was to stick pins in a wax effigy of the King and then threw it into the fire.

Charles I, more the gentleman insisted after his own nuptials that “you can get used to anyone’s face in a week”.

Frederick, Prince of Wales when marrying in 1736 found his bride Augusta of Saxe-Coburg had been sick down her wedding dress. That was the least of his problems, he died before being crowned.

A word of warning to the Archbishop of Canterbury, keep your sermon short. At Edward VII’s wedding so fed up with the length of the monotonous sermon the orchestra struck up to drown him out.

At least William has seen Katherine before the nuptials, Henry VIII was not so lucky, seriously disappointed he nicknamed her the Flanders Mare, declaring on her demise “God be praised, the old harridan is dead”.

William is only the second heir to the throne for 300 years to marry an English girl, the first was his dad, and hopefully this union will last.