The Prince and Princess of Wales celebrated their 13th wedding anniversary this year, but since they tied the knot in 2011 many details about their big day have become public – and it seems that they chose to forgo a number of royal traditions to make the day their own. As well as creating their own wedding guest list, Kate reportedly shocked the late Queen Elizabeth II by doing her own make-up and they also broke protocol on their wedding night.
However, one thing that surprised many royal fans is that William and Kate decided against signing a prenup. While it isn’t something that many royals have been publicly known to do in the past – the late Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson didn’t sign prenups when they married into the royal family – one of Diana’s former private secretaries, Patrick Jephson, commented on the idea that conversations could be happening within the royal household. When William and Kate announced their engagement in November 2010, Jephson said: “If she was my sister, I’d tell her to get a good prenup… Kate’s not just going into a marriage, she’s going into a business.”
In response, insiders claimed that such discussions weren’t taking place at all, and they refuted claims that William had ‘refused’ to sign one despite being advised to by those in his circle. In fact, they denied that William rejected the idea of a prenup because it was never considered in the first place. One royal source told the Daily Mail at the time: “For him to refuse, it would have had to have been suggested to him by someone and it was not. There is no prenuptial agreement in place for this wedding.”
Several royal couples have navigated divorce, including Princess Diana and the then-Prince Charles, and Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. While the Duchess of York was given a £15,000 yearly payment from her ex-husband following their divorce in 1996, Diana’s legal team secured her a £17 million payout.