King Charles and Queen Camilla are currently carrying out an official state visit to Italy, but they're also celebrating their 20th anniversary on Wednesday, April 9. To mark the special day, one of The King's former butlers has shared the touching way the then-Prince Charles included him on their 2005 wedding day. Although it's been reported that The King can be quite demanding of his staff, he went above and beyond for one particular member of the household.
Speaking on behalf of Prime Casino, Grant Harrold—who worked as a personal butler to Charles at Highgrove House for six years—said that members of the household staff who'd been serving Prince Charles for more than one year were invited to the wedding.
"I'd been at Highgrove for about eight months when the wedding was announced," Harrold shared. "I later found out that I wasn't getting invited to the wedding because you had to have completed at least a year's service, and I had only been there eight months. All of my colleagues got their official wedding invitations coming in, but I didn’t get one."
The former palace employee recalled feeling "gutted" over having to miss out on the day. "I'd have loved to have gone, but that was obviously not going to happen."
However, Charles and Camilla pulled out a last-minute surprise for Harrold ahead of their big day, with the former butler stating he “got a phone call about two weeks before the wedding."
"It was from this chap who was the finance controller for the household, and he said, ‘I've been asked to call you on behalf of the Prince of Wales and Miss Parker-Bowles,'" Harrold said. The man explained that although Harrold hadn't served a year in his role, Charles and Camilla were "allowed to invite friends and family, and under the friends and family quota, they're inviting you to go."
The butler admitted that the invitation made him "very emotional," adding, "I certainly was on the verge of tears. I was so excited to get invited to a royal wedding—I couldn't believe it. It's extraordinary to suddenly get invited to something like that. You pinch yourself, thinking, 'I can't believe—I can't believe this.'"
Although he described the 2005 ceremony at St. George's Chapel as "more relaxed and definitely very different" to a typical royal wedding, Harrold said the service "was similar to most normal weddings."
Speaking of his former boss and how he's grown, Harrold added, "Charles’s relationship with Camilla changed him for the better. She's helped him become more comfortable and more himself—I think we see more of the real him thanks to her. She makes him laugh a lot."
