Wedding invites

Rules for wedding invites, particularly Royal ones

You think this is a day for the bride and groom.  Forget it.  Since the parents of the bride normally get to pick up most of the tab, the mother of the bride gets to decide who is coming and who is not

Doesn't apply to next week's big day, where the honour would normally fall to the mother of the bridegroom because his side is picking up the tab.

Again doesn't apply here because she's not around, so it's granny who gets to have the biggest say on the list because it's all back to her place for the reception.  Naturally she's going to have some of her pals to keep her company with a good natter away from most of the part, but she also gets to pick some of extended family and a few business contacts.

Being in the unelected lifetime monarch business there are obviously quite a few to invite, quite a few that we have never heard of, and probably a few monarchs of countries that disappeared in the last century, but never mind they are glad of the invite and will be keen to make a splash on the wedding list.

Which leads us to the issue of the preferment of Arab dictator princelings to Scottish ex-prime ministers.  Now let's face it, if it came down to a personality test, it would probably be a dead heat, but that isn't what counts.  Forget protocol (there is none), and consider the feelings of the young couple.

Which would they rather have at their wedding?  The one who isn't just going to give them a full dinner service, but also a pair of his and hers matching Lamborghinis and a year's supply of petrol. With some wedding guests, excessive lavishness is de rigueuer.

... but not Phoney Bliar and Prudence McDoom.