The Duchess of Cambridge, née Kate Middleton's first love tied the knot at the weekend. Willem Marx, who was Kate's only male friend from her schooldays to attend her royal wedding in 2011, married in a romantic ceremony on the beautiful Amalfi Coast in Italy.Kate, who married Prince William three years ago and whose son Prince George turns one on 22 July, didn't attend the nuptials.
"It was a joyful occasion," says a member of the congregation in the Catholic Basilica in Castellabate. "It's a shame Kate couldn't make it." The bride, Italian TV presenter Johanna Botta, was stunning on her special day dressed in a glittering organza gown. Willem was Kate's boyfriend when she attended Marlborough College in Wiltshire. The pair have remained good friends, and in 2007 were pictured together leaving Boujis nightclub in South Kensington.
Willem, an Oxford graduate and journalist, has worked in Iraq, which earned him an Emmy nomination. He now resides in New York with his new wife. Before Johanna, he dated Dare 2 Magazine editor Shirley Leigh Wood Oakes and brunette Lancome model Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann, the granddaughter of Casablanca star Ingrid Bergman. Willem was one of two ex-boyfriends invited to Kate's royal nuptials. The other was the Duchess' former flame Rupert Finch, who she dated when the two were students at St. Andrews University. The lawyer married Lady Natasha Rufus Isaacs in a beautiful ceremony in Gloucester in 2013. Princess Eugenie and Cressida Bonas, who recently split from Prince Harry, were in attendance, as was Prince Michael of Kent.
