The story so far is far from a fairytale

First of all, red-faced courtiers had to switch the venue for the April 8th civil ceremony after a mix-up over marriage licences. The ceremony has had to be moved from the exclusive confines of Windsor Castle, west of London, to the local town hall just down the road, past the pubs and burger bars.

That was because one — overlooked — condition for granting a licence for the couple to marry at the castle would be to allow commoners to stage weddings there too. No way, decreed the royals who then faced another shock. By law, members of the public are entitled to attend town hall weddings.

Adding to the embarrassment for the House of Windsor, constitutional experts have been arguing that members of the royal family are not allowed to marry in a civil ceremony in England.

‘‘If the Republican movement had been asked to write the screenplay, it could scarcely have come up with a better script,’’ said the Daily Express .Constitutional expert David Starkey caustically said: ‘‘You really just wonder what has been the rush which has got everybody into this ill-researched and ill-planned marriage.‘‘Nothing seems to have been thought through and there has been no proper consultation of experts,’’ he said.

Dr Stephen Cretney, a legal history specialist at Oxford University, started the arguments when he claimed there is no statutory procedure whereby members of the royal family can marry in an English register office.

Former Attorney General Nicholas Lyell, once the government’s chief law officer, said Tony Blair’s government had failed to give Queen Elizabeth adequate advice over the union’s legality under the 1949 Marriage Act. —Reuters