Princess Charlotte's Teacher Quietly Marries One of Prince William's Best Friends
When Princess Charlotte returns to school this fall, she'll have a special connection to one of her teachers. Lucy Lanigan-O’Keeffe, who works as an assistant head teacher at Thomas’s Battersea (the school both Charlotte and her older brother Prince George attend) recently married Charlotte's godfather, Thomas van Straubenzee, a close friend of Prince William's.
The happy couple was supposed to tie the knot in April, but like so many brides and grooms, they had to postpone their ceremony because of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Sunday Times, originally, Charlotte was going to be a bridesmaid in the wedding, and Prince William an usher, but instead, Straubenzee and Lanigan-O’Keeffe "married at Chelsea Old Church, southwest London, on July 24 with only their parents and siblings present." The Times also confirmed that the couple is expecting their first child together.
While it is unclear how Straubenzee and Lanigan-O’Keeffe met, when their engagement was first announced, reporter Roya Nikkah hypothesized that the Cambridges may have facilitated an introduction. "Nobody would be surprised if Prince William or his wife, Kate, were involved," she wrote at the time. The Cambridges have yet to comment on the matter.
The van Straubenzees has long had close ties to the royal family. Thomas attended Ludgrove School (a boarding school in Berkshire) with Princes William and Harry, as did his younger brother Charlie and their late brother Henry, who died in a car crash in 2002.
This is van Straubenzee's second marriage. Both William and Harry were ushers at his first wedding to Lady Melissa Percy in 2013, but that relationship ended in divorce three years later.
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