Royal Wedding: Kate Middleton's Family Chips In but Security Most Costly
Royal wedding security accounts for bulk of the expenses.
April 29, 2011 — -- Rumors about Kate Middleton's royal wedding dress designer, the cake -- or cakes -- food and decorations will soon all be put to rest. But what might never be known is the precise cost of the whole affair, with estimates ranging from $16 million to $64 million and security accounting for the bulk of it.
To cover some of the expenses, the Middleton family is reportedly contributing six figures for specific costs of the wedding, according to Vanity Fair, which might include paying for hotel rooms for family members at the luxurious Goring Hotel.
Slideshow: See Where Kate Middleton Spent Her Last Night as a Commoner
The cost for a standard double room there is about $550 a night, although it's rumored that Middleton spent her last night as a single woman in a suite, which would be considerably more expensive.
The Middletons are also paying for her reported three dresses.
Middleton will apparently have one dress for the ceremony and wear the second dress for the brunch hosted by the queen at Buckingham Palace for about 600 guests. She will adorn a third dress for an evening reception hosted by Prince Charles, which will have about 300 guests, said Amy Eisinger, editor of weddingchannel.com
The two receptions will cost about $600,000, including $80,000 for two wedding cakes: a traditional white, buttercream or fruit cake, and a groom's cake (for which Prince William reportedly requested a chocolate cookie cake), Eisinger estimates.
"When you start breaking that down per head, it comes to a lot," Eisinger said. "If the two cakes are divided by 600 guests, that's $133 a slice."
Still, the wedding is by no means "opulent," said Dickie Arbiter, former spokesman for Buckingham Palace. This will be the fifth royal wedding he has attended.
