Royals urged to have 'nice registry office wedding'

There is growing pressure on Prince William to avoid spending taxpayers' money on his upcoming wedding to Kate Middleton by settling for a ceremony at the register office in Slough and a 'small do' at the nearby Black Swan pub.

While the bill for Prince Charles and Diana's wedding in 1981 ran into the millions, the recent economic downturn has left the nation less willing to fund other people's nuptials, even if they belong to a now-obsolete ruling family.

Rumours suggest that William has taken the public's mood on board and already begun to make enquiries at the Slough register office where every wedding comes with a six-pack of Carlsberg.

The mooted venue for the glamorous reception is the Black Swan pub where owner Ken has promised to put on 'a lovely spread', including but not limited to sausage rolls, cheese and pineapple on a stick and cheese footballs if he can find them in Lidl.

Prince Phillip has already made a start on his speech with sources reporting that the 89-year-old has some 'killer material'.

While taxpayers may not be expected to foot the entire cost of the wedding, it looks likely that they will be expected to give a wedding gift. The royals have set up a gift list on John Lewis' website with 26,765,211 items. The set of kitchen towels and pyrex punch bowl have already been snapped up.