Another Kate and William to tie the knot — but farm comes first

MUCKING about a farm is probably not how the British royal couple are spending the eve of their wedding, but for one Kate and William getting married today — wedding or no wedding — farming comes first.

While Kate Middleton was getting pampered in preparation for her wedding yesterday, bride-to-be Kate Buckley from Kilcorney in Cork was spending the eve of her big day making sure her dairy cows were milked, fed and happy before taking care of herself.

“I was supposed to get my nails done on Tuesday but it didn’t happen,” explained bride-to-be Kate.

“For the majority of farmers, it’s a seven day week job. Both of us have great support from family and neighbours, but there is always something to do.”

Meanwhile, Kate’s fiance and fellow dairy farmer William Casey, from Berrings, was also spending the day farming with his father in Inniscarra.

Kate said they got engaged last year around August, and the royal couple announced their engagement a short time after.

“Our friends and relatives were sending messages and paper clippings of the royal engagement for a joke, and our relations kept saying I hope they don’t pick the same wedding date as you — so it was a shock when we discovered they were to marry the day after us, on the April 29. We were making jokes that they couldn’t pick April 28 because that was mine and William’s day.”

However, while the royal couple were said to have chosen their date to mark it as a “classic British occasion with good spring weather,” Kate and William based their wedding day on much more practical reasons.

“William farms turkeys as well as dairy cows, and because of Christmas, January was unsuitable because he would have been too busy,” said Kate.

“Then we considered having a May wedding, but we wanted to wait until after the first cut of silage because a lot of our guests are from the farming community. June, in our opinion, was too late, so April became the best option.”

Kate added that although their names and date bears a resemblance to the royal couple’s wedding, she has planned a much simpler and family-orientated celebration.

“We will have a very interactive ceremony with eight priests in total. The royal couple have a lot of symbolism in their cake, and we have done the same. Other than that I didn’t believe in spending a year preparing for our wedding, so we started organising it around January, and a lot of the preparation has been last-minute. We haven’t gone overboard on the cake, flowers or music, and we haven’t hired a car. I work on the farm in Kilcorney with my aunt and she helped me with all the dress fittings.

“I will be having no bridesmaids because I have a lot of good friends and I didn’t want to have to choose between them, so instead I asked my brother to be a witness. But, we have gone all out on making sure the people that we love and mean something to us will be with us on the day.”

Kate added that while she doesn’t plan to spend her wedding day on the farm, there is always a chance she will need to pull on her boots before the day is out: “We have farm relief booked for the day, but because one of the calves is sick we may have to do one run down to the yard before the wedding.”