When Princess Märtha Louise of Norway arrived in the picturesque Norwegian town of Geiranger ahead of her wedding last week, she was overheard telling photographers to allow locals to take their pictures too.
"They're more important than you right now," she was quoted as saying.
Now, in a HELLO! exclusive, we can reveal that the princess and her new husband, shaman Durek Verrett, shared their wedding cake with locals as a way of thanking them for their support.
"After the wedding, when all the guests left on Monday, the couple asked for the cake to be served to all the locals of Geiranger as a thank you for welcoming them and making everything so wonderful for them when they arrived on Friday," shares Monja Mjelva, the head of the Union Hotel, where the couple were wed.
"We set up a table in the street outside of the hotel with a view of the fjord, and we sent a message from the bride and groom to all the locals to come and try their cake.
"So many people came. I was cutting the cake for two to three hours, I think I cut more than 200 pieces of cake, in the end I had to ask for some help!"
The five-tier wedding cake was designed by Odd Ivar Solvold and made by the hotel's pastry chefs Alina Baskardina and Jelena Tulenkova, after just one consultation and one tasting with the couple.
"We had one discussion on how it should look, and then we presented a suggestion on one layer, and they tasted it and were happy!" shares Monja.
"They had a really clear idea of what they wanted. They love carrot cake, so that was going to be the sponge. Then the icing was to be the same colours as the wedding, white with pink flowers and gold leaves up the sides."
The end result took two days to make (the flowers taking a further week), weighed 80 kilos, and was the biggest cake that the hotel has ever created for a guest's wedding.
"It was really heavy," laughs Monja. "It was a whole production with our technical team ensuring it held together when we were transporting it."
The couple's monogram, designed especially for the wedding and featuring their initials intertwined, was emblazoned in gold on both sides of the cake on the third tier, so that guests could see it from all sides.
On top there was a tiny model of the bride and groom – inedible so that it could be a souvenir of the day.
After it was cut, the kitchen swooped out with 336 pre-made individual cakes of the same flavour, so that the couple – and the hotel staff – didn't need to spend hours cutting slices for the wedding guests.
"It was presented like a golden sun on a black plate," shares Monja. "On the black tablecloth too, it looked really special."
To read the full exclusive and to see more photos from Märtha Louise and Durek's wedding reception, pick up the latest issue of HELLO! on sale in the UK next week. You can subscribe to HELLO! to get the magazine delivered free to your door every week or purchase the digital edition online via our Apple or Google apps.
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