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A Royal Plot
Newsday(June 30, 1995)
Is This Huge Greek Wedding A Royal Plot?
If anything will take British minds off Hugh Grant for a few hours, it's a royal wedding - with strong undertones of political intrigue. The son of Greece's exiled King Constantine will marry an American, 26-year-old Marie-Chantal Miller, this Saturday in London.
She's the daughter of the awfully rich man who owns duty-free shops at airports all over the world. And this is the biggest royal wedding since Charles married Diana. It's so big, in fact, that some nervous Greeks are accusing Constantine of using the wedding day to try to win back his throne. (He lost it in a military coup back in 1967.)
One Greek legislator (OK, a Socialist) even took the opportunity to call the whole wedding a plot. Yikes! What has the Greeks worked up is the wording on the wedding invitations, which refers to the groom's parents as "King and Queen of the Hellenes." Greeks who voted to abolish the monarchy in 1974 say that's a diplomatic insult. But it's no skin off other royal noses. It's hard to find a crowned head in Europe who won't be at the big buffet.
Prince Charles and his father, Philip, a descendant of Greek kings, will attend along with King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia of Spain and Denmark's Queen Margrethe, another blueblood sovereign with close family ties. The whole thing is supposed to cost Marie-Chantal's dad about $2 million. And get this, after all the confetti is cleaned up, the bride and groom will be coming home to Connecticut. Sigh