Butlers: Wills and Kate Won't Forgo Us for Long

When they marry next year, Prince William and Kate Middleton have reportedly decided to forgo a bevy of royal servants and do their cooking and cleaning on their own. But are Kate and Wills really up for washing the royal dishes?

Sure, butlers say. For now. "Maybe this has even been taken out of context," Curtis Akerlind, executive head butler of the International Butler Academy in the Netherlands, told AOL News today by phone. "They're trying to be as independent as possible. But I think as the future king and his wife get older, they'll have all the support staff that inevitably comes with the royal family."

News that Middleton and her royal fiance Prince William plan to live in their rented cottage in the English countryside without so much as a maid had some royal observers simply flummoxed. After all, many British newspapers noted, the prince's father enjoys a staff of about 150 people. "[Prince William's] insistence on doing his own cooking and washing up is in stark contrast to his father, the Prince of Wales, who employs 149 staff, of whom 25 are classed as personal staff for himself, the Duchess of Cornwall and Princes William and Harry," The Telegraph in London reported.

But professional butlers say that while the young couple may eschew a legion of servants in their first married years together for the sake of privacy, that will likely change when William completes his service as an RAF search and rescue pilot and the pair begin to think about having children.

"I think once the prince finishes his tour of active duty and they move into a permanent home, which will be, probably, huge, then they'll have housekeepers, gardeners, the whole thing," David Cassford, a native of the United Kingdom, told AOL News. A co-founder of Cassford Management, which helps staff high-end households, Cassford said living on their own will help the couple find out what kind of servants they really want. "I think this is a good thing," he said. "It gives them time to really assess what they're going to need in the future."

The butlers also said that the prince and his wife-to-be, both 28, might be trying to live as normal a life as possible. "Maybe they're trying to put a modern look onto marriage that shows the independence and everydayness that relates better to their people," Akerlind suggested. And Cassford said other young wealthy couples in the U.K. will likely follow their lead. "They'll be looked as a trendsetters." But, he said, "as they get busier and busier, they'll probably get a local housekeeper."

But in the meantime, the royal couple apparently will deal with their own dirty laundry upstairs rather than have someone from downstairs air it in public.