By Katie Nicholl, Mail On Sunday Royal Correspondent
Last updated at 5:59 PM on 1st May 2011
Prince Harry paid a moving tribute to his brother ‘The Dude’ and his new sister-in-law ‘The Duchess’ during a heartfelt speech at their evening wedding reception on Friday.
Harry also told the couple’s friends and family that he loved Kate ‘like a sister’ and how the story of the couple’s long romance ‘inspires’ him. According to several guests, Kate was ‘very emotional and touched’ by Harry’s tribute and even shed a tear during the evening’s festivities.
Harry delivered his best man’s speech, which he had been working on for the past fortnight, at 9.30pm after 300 of the couple’s close family and friends had enjoyed a three-course meal with vintage champagne.
He had asked his best friends Thomas Van Straubenzee and Guy Pelly to be a sounding board ahead of the speech and is understood to have dropped a reference to ‘Kate’s killer legs’ from the final edit.
‘Harry had some joke in about how he had immediately given Kate the thumbs up when William first brought her home because she had such a great pair of pins, but he didn’t want to embarrass her,’ said a friend.
According to sources inside the evening reception, Harry’s speech was ‘warm and affectionate’ and peppered with good humour and jokes.
One partygoer leaving Buckingham Palace event in the early hours of Saturday told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Harry said William was the perfect brother. It was exactly how you would expect a best man’s speech to be. He cracked loads of jokes about William. He called him a “dude” several times. He kept coming back to it, saying “What a dude”.’
Harry described his brother’s relationship with Kate as ‘inspirational’ and to much applause added: ‘William didn’t have a romantic bone in his body before he met Kate, so I knew it was serious when William suddenly started cooing down the phone at Kate.’
Harry, famous for his impersonations, then did a high-pitched impression of Kate calling William ‘Billy’ and of his brother calling Kate ‘baby’, to much hilarity from the guests.
Earlier in the day it was the Prince of Wales who had been playing the joker, making a comment about his son’s thinning hair during the wedding breakfast at Buckingham Palace.
‘The thing about growing older is that your children get taller than you so they can see your bald spots. Now in my case, I can see his,’ Prince Charles remarked, to which William retorted: ‘You got there before Harry!’ to much laughter.
William delivered a brief speech at the wedding breakfast where he proudly introduced his wife as ‘Mrs Wales’ even though the couple will be formally known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
A heartfelt Prince William declared his new wife 'my rock' in the emotional speech, given to guests at the intimate reception.
‘It was received with cheers and shouts of hoorah,’ said one guest. ‘William and Catherine were amazingly relaxed, and although it was a formal affair, it felt very relaxed and intimate. Catherine was amazingly calm and said how thrilled she was with the day. She and William didn’t leave one another’s side. They said it was the happiest day of their lives.
‘William was very gracious and thanked absolutely everyone for making the day come together. He thanked everyone from the florist to the chef.’
After the wedding breakfast the newlyweds returned to Clarence House in Prince Charles’s Aston Martin, which had been customised by the best man with balloons and a ‘JU5T WED’ number plate.
Harry returned shortly afterwards and he, Kate and William spent the afternoon relaxing and watching a replay of the wedding ceremony on television.
As they made their way to the reception with Charles and Camilla, William was heard talking about how his goddaughter bridesmaid Grace Van Cutsem, the three-year-old daughter of his friends Hugh and Rose Van Cutsem, had covered her ears with her hands because of the thunderous applause from the crowds at The Mall.
Party that rocked Buckingham Palace
As predicted, the evening celebrations continued into the early hours. The Queen and Prince Philip had left Buckingham Palace to William and Kate, and glitter balls had been hung in the throne room where a disco continued into the small hours.
Kate had changed out of her Alexander McQueen wedding dress and into a floor-length ivory satin gazar gown with a diamante-embroidered waistband and a cream-coloured angora bolero jacket, also designed by her wedding dress maker Sarah Burton. Her hairdresser James Pryce reprised her engagement day hairstyle for the evening event.
Kate left Clarence House to travel by car to Buckingham Palace with her husband, who was dressed in a dinner jacket and black tie. They were followed by Charles, also wearing a dinner suit, and Camilla, who wore a blue Anna Valentine dress.
As they filtered into the party guests were greeted by a military band in full uniform and serenaded with bagpipes. The atmosphere inside the Palace was described as ‘electric’ and ‘buzzing’ by a female band member who performed for the couple.
‘Kate looked beautiful. Absolutely serene. She had changed into a full-length white dress. It was stunning. I saw the couple together.
She and William both looked very, very happy and were smiling as people came over to them.’
At 8.30pm a three-course dinner was served by Swiss chef Anton Mossiman. He had brought 25 staff from his Knightsbridge restaurant into the Palace.
William, Kate and Pippa, Kate’s younger sister and Maid of Honour who has been instrumental in helping to plan the party, had visited Mosimann’s last month for a tasting and instructed the chef to create a ‘simple and unstuffy but sophisticated menu’.
Harry was seated next to his on-off girlfriend Chelsy Davy and gave his speech at 9.30pm after dinner was served.
‘Kate had been amazingly composed throughout the day, but she did look as though she had a tear in her eye when Harry gave his speech. She was very emotional,’ said a source.
The father of the bride delivered a speech that had the whole room roaring with laughter when he told the controversial story of William landing his Chinook in the back garden of the Middletons’ family home.
‘I knew things were getting serious when I found a helicopter in my garden. I thought, gosh, he must like my daughter,’ said Michael Middleton.
Speaking warmly of William, whom he called ‘one of the family’, Mr Middleton said: ‘I did wonder then how William was going to top this if they ever got engaged. I just thought, What will he do? You can’t get much better than that and we are certainly not used to Princes landing helicopters in the garden.'
Palace joker: Prince Harry takes his Master of Ceremonies duties carefully, clutching a microphone as he leaves Buckingham Palace in a coach on Friday night
Party-goers said that both William and Harry used the evening to pay moving tributes to their late mother, Princess Diana.
‘All the speeches mentioned Diana. Of course they did, she was their mother after all,’ said one.
After the speeches William and Kate took to the dance floor by themselves for the first dance, a rendition of Elton John’s Your Song sung by Ellie Goulding.
The 24-year-old singer – the only act to perform during the night – was chosen by the couple because she is their favourite artist.
‘It was an amazing honour to be asked by Kate and William to perform at their party. The atmosphere was incredible and it is a night I will never forget,’ she said yesterday.
The music continued until 2am. Among the songs played were You’re The One That I Want from the musical Grease. William had requested songs by rapper Tinie Tempah and the Body Rockers’ I Like The Way You Move.
Even the mother of the bride had a request and asked for the 1986 Jermaine Stewart song We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off to be played.
Two female party-goers said the dancing was ‘fun and outrageous’, adding: ‘There was a chicken dance with lots of arm flapping, which was particularly good fun. Everyone was on the dance floor. The guests were really up for partying.’
Even back-room staff weren’t exempt – Buckingham Palace catering staff said the Palace threw a party for workers with bottles of Jacobs Creek wine, Boddingtons beer, vodka and gin on the menu.
Just after midnight the first guests began to leave. Among them were Charles and Camilla, the official hosts of the event, who were whisked through the main Palace gates at 12.20am looking happy and relaxed despite the long day.
At 2.45am loud cheers could be heard from over the Palace walls as a fireworks display was let off in the back garden. Partygoers whooped and cheered as red and white rockets were fired in short bursts.
By 3am only a handful of hardened party-goers were left inside the Palace, including Harry, Chelsy and Pippa
The 101-year-old hotel, which had been hired out in its entirety by the Middleton family, became the focus for guests looking to continue partying into the small hours.
In what appeared to be a well-organised procedure, a convoy of three silver coaches, each filled with around 30 guests, was used to transport revellers from Buckingham Palace.
Harry, who seemed in high spirits, sat in the front row of seats, directly behind the coach driver as he was taken from the Palace, with Pippa in the row behind him.
A black Range Rover followed close behind carrying Chelsy, 25, and Prince Andrew’s daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.
Chelsy and Eugenie were in the back seat and Beatrice, wearing a purple and gold one-shouldered dress, in the front.
Police had already sealed all four road entrances to The Goring hotel preventing anyone other than Royal guests accessing the hotel entrance, which was adorned with white and pink hydrangeas and red geraniums mounted on garlands of ivy.
As he arrived at The Goring, Harry bolted from the coach and into the hotel foyer where he was greeted by hotel staff and security who took the names of partygoers at the door.
Butlers in bowler hats welcomed revellers in via the tented porch and through the front door.
Other guests followed on foot, some swigging from champagne bottles as they made the five-minute walk along the deserted streets around Buckingham Palace to The Goring.
Many guests were spotted clutching handbag-sized presents wrapped in gold paper – believed to be wedding favours from the couple.
At one point several of the guests who walked to the hotel took part in an impromptu piggy back race past the Palace walls before dismounting when they reached The Goring.
The revelries at the hotel, where Kate spent her last night as a single woman on Thursday, continued until sunrise. Tony Unsworth, 59, a family friend of the Middletons, said: ‘I went to bed around 1am but I heard guests stumbling around at 5am coming back from the Palace.’
The playlist
Ellie Goulding (live)
Your Song
Ellie Goulding (live)
Starry Eyed
Jermaine Stewart
We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off
Body Rockers
I Like The Way You Move
Tinie Tempah
Pass Out
The Kings Of Leon
Sex On Fire
Mossiman menu
Terrine of dressed crab and tiger prawns
Aberdeen Angus beef fillet from Longoe Farm, the Castle of Mey, Scotland
Welsh lamb from the Highgrove estate
Spring vegetables grilled and blanched (and not cooked in butter or cream)
Trio of chocolate puddings
Seasonal fruits
Ice cream with a brandy snap