Given that tradition is a bit of a thing for the Windsor clan, Prince William may already have received the nod from his little brother, who served as the best man for his own wedding. This puts the duke in a tricky position: how do you pull off a stag do – and a decent speech – for a groom who, in banter terms, has been there, drunk that and got the Nazi uniform?
Well, Wills has options. The first is to take inspiration from the invites already flying around social media. A student wag at University College London created a “Prince Harry’s Stag Do” event on Facebook this week which, at the time of writing, is due to be attended by 36,000 people. A competing page suggests a game of paintball at Buckingham Palace, followed by clubbing and karaoke.
The prince could also nick a few ideas from previous royal stags, including his own, which involved a “low-key” weekend at a former monastery in Devon (or perhaps a country pile in Norfolk – there were conflicting reports). Prince Philip had a dinner at the Belfry Club in Belgravia, while uncle Andy’s do at the Notting Hill house of Lord Lascelles was gatecrashed by police. The officers were, it turned out, Sarah Ferguson and Princess Diana in costume.
None of this sounds very, well, Harry, so I call Oliver Lucas, founder of IAmTheBestMan.co.uk, a one-stop resource for all such duties. Stags, Lucas says, are changing as men get married later (the average marriage age for men is now 37; Harry is 33). Less Ryanair lashfests in Bratislava, more whisky tasting in Scottish castles.
“Harry is moneyed of course, so it’s slightly different,” says the former market research analyst. “There’s some outrageous stags these days, including a company that advertises a trip to space for six people for about 80 grand. You wouldn’t get any paps up there.”
Lucas, 40, once advised a city type who flew Pete Tong and a group of models to a villa in the Balearics. Another wanted to be treated “like a king” in Dubai while dressed as a sheikh. “But you have to be a bit careful over there with that sort of carry-on, and I think Harry should avoid it,” he advises. We settle on a rented island, somewhere in Scotland, with guns and whisky. You’re welcome, Wills.
But what about the speech? Lucas has just launched speechmate.com, a best man’s speech machine and work of minor genius. I fill in the prince’s details, ticking boxes to describe the groom (“likes a drink”, “was a bit of a ladies’ man”, “is a posh lad”). My speech appears in seconds, or at least the first three paragraphs do (you pay £99 for the rest). It includes a slightly off-colour gag about the groom’s rumoured adoption, but each paragraph can be switched.
I go for one that begins: “For those of you who don’t know me, my name is William”, and ends with: “They say blood is thicker than water. Harry is thicker than both.” Bit harsh, but, as Harry knows better than any modern prince, it’s all just a bit of banter.
