Jordan's royal wedding gets underway with surprise arrival of William and Kate

Amman, June 2: Jordan's highly anticipated royal wedding day got underway on Thursday with the surprise announcement that Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate had arrived to witness the nuptials of Crown Prince Hussein and his Saudi Arabian bride.

The attendance of the British royals had been kept under wraps, and was only confirmed by Jordanian state media a few hours before the start of the palace ceremony.

The wedding of Jordan's 28-year-old heir to the throne and Rajwa Alseif, a 29-year-old architect linked to her own country's monarch, emphasizes continuity in an Arab state prized for its longstanding stability. 

The festivities, which are to start Thursday afternoon, also introduce Hussein to a wider global audience.

The celebration buttresses the royal family's order of succession, refreshes its image after a palace feud and may even help resource-poor Jordan forge a strategic bond with its oil-rich neighbour, Saudi Arabia.

On Thursday morning, Saudi wedding guests and tourists — the men wearing white dishdasha robes and the women in brightly colored abayas — filtered through the sleek marbled lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in Amman. Noura Al Sudairi, an aunt of the bride, was wearing sweatpants and sneakers on her way to breakfast.

“We are all so excited, so happy about this union,” she said. “Of course it’s a beautiful thing for our families, and for the relationship between Jordan and Saudi Arabia.” (AP)