What Romantic Prince William Said to Kate Middleton on the Buckingham Palace Balcony on Their Wedding Day

Prince William Kate Middleton Royal Wedding

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 12 March 2022

It was one of the most widely watched weddings of all time—the nuptials of Prince William to Kate Middleton on April 29, 2011. We all saw them kiss after the ceremony on the Buckingham Palace balcony—twice!—but what exactly did William say to his bride that day, as they stood on the balcony with the eyes of the world on them?

When Kate walked onto the balcony and noticed the throng of onlookers below her, her first reaction was an astonished “Wow,” reports MyLondon, via the Mirror. The euphoric crowd below the newly minted Cambridges chanted “We want Kate! We want Kate!” and, to William, “Kiss her! Kiss her!”

The couple soaked in the moment before William turned to Kate and said, cheekily, “Go on, a little kiss, go on.”

Their first kiss was “modest and quick, but the crowds still cheered with delight,” the Mirror reports.

And, though the pair normally shy away from PDA, caught up in the exuberance, William turned to Kate again and said “Let’s give them another one. I love you. One more kiss, one more kiss. Okay?” The second kiss, of course, delighted the crowd, to the point where one of the bridesmaids covered her ears. Meanwhile, best man and William’s brother Prince Harry shared a joke with his grandfather, Prince Philip.

Thinking back on that fantastic day, lipreaders studied not just what was said on the balcony but also what was said inside Westminster Abbey, where William and Kate’s wedding ceremony was held. As Kate walked down the aisle toward her groom, William stuck to tradition and avoided looking at his bride; Harry, however, snuck a glance, and whispered to William “Right, she is here now,” according to royal author Marcia Moody in her 2013 book Kate: A Biography. “Well, she looks beautiful, I can tell you that.”

When Kate finally met William at the altar after her long walk down the aisle, “the couple set eyes on each other, and William murmured to Kate, ‘You look beautiful,’” Moody wrote.

Fun fact about the Buckingham Palace balcony kiss tradition: Because Prince Charles and Princess Diana were so nervous at their 1981 wedding ceremony, he forgot to kiss his bride at the end of the ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral—so they made up for it with a kiss on the balcony afterwards.

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.

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