Wedding planner Charles finds time for Scots couple

Published on Wednesday 27 April 2011 19:30

LESS than 48 hours before his son's nuptials, Prince Charles made a flying visit to Scotland to help launch a new wedding venue in a historic house close to his heart.

The Prince of Wales, the Duke of Rothesay, had ensured his part in preparations for tomorrow's big day were complete so he could honour a prior engagement to officially open the summer season at Dumfries House in Ayrshire. The prince met the first couple who will be married at the 18th century mansion near Cumnock in June, and compared notes on wedding plans.

Jamie McCann, 27, and Mairi Gillies, 30, from nearby Balloch-myle, asked the prince how things were going with William and Kate's preparations.

"So you will be busy with your own wedding?" Mr McCann, a supermarket chain security official, asked the prince.

"Yes - all the organising!" came the reply, with a hint of a sigh. The prince had a badly bloodshot eye but it was not thought to have been caused by any particular incident.

Ms Gillies, who works for Boots, said: "I'm very much looking forward to watching the royal wedding. I'm very excited."

While the couple's marriage will be on a more modest scale, with some 60 guests, they have arranged individual touches such as the flypast of a light aircraft trailing coloured smoke - along with some unique material from their royal encounter for the bridegroom's speech.

The prince has been to Dumfries House at least six times since leading a consortium to save the Adam brothers property in 2007, and aides said he had been determined to make yesterday's visit despite tomorrow's impending event.

In his last public engagement before the wedding, the prince travelled north of the Border especially to tour progress on the house. With the paint only just dry on Dumfries House's latest improvements, events director Sheila Gregory already has a second wedding confirmed for the venue, and expects a flurry of interest following the prince's visit and the royal wedding.

She said: "Across the whole of Britain, wedding fever has taken grip. In this part of the world, it would be great to see the grandness of royal weddings brought to Scotland. However, it is not too grand a historic house - it has a homely feel and I think we have simply built on that."

A permanent marquee has been attached to the rear of the house, with wedding parties able to gaze out across the lawn to banks of rhododendrons and sheep-filled fields on the 2,000 acre estate.

In a reminder of Ayrshire's industrial aspects, the belching chimney of a chipboard factory is also clearly visible over the trees on the horizon.

The prince was shown restoration work on key items in the house, such as a 1759 Chippendale rosewood bookcase with an "unrivalled honeycomb pattern veneer", which experts said would have sold for 10 million if the house had not been saved, making it the most valuable piece of furniture ever made.

The prince is expected to return to the estate later this year to see progress on the eco-village he has designed at Knockroon, which has been described as the "Scottish Poundbury" in a reference to his planned village in Dorset.