The Will and Kate Tour: Dash of Gossip, Dollop of Diana

LONDON -- "Is this breaking news?" the woman to my left asked with great relish.

The odds were slim. Hana Umezawa, the cigarette-smoking guide on William and Kate's Royal Wedding Walk, hardly seemed likely to be the one announcing to the world the name of the designer of Kate Middleton's wedding dress.

And yet Umezawa implied she was letting the cat out of the bag with this pronouncement:

"I've got an insight for you that's not in the script, this bit. Just found out that the wedding dress is going to be designed by Bruce Oldfield, who's a British designer who lived in the U.S. for a while, actually."

And so the woman asked whether this was breaking news, to which Umezawa confirmed, "This is breaking news."

"How did you find out?" the woman asked, with even more elation. "That's been such a closely guarded secret."

Umezawa's reply: "I think it was AP that mentioned it in one of the interviews that featured the royal wedding, so that's how we found out about it." (Oldfield remains a rumored designer but is looking less and less likely, says New York Magazine.)

And so it went on a chilly, gray afternoon as Umezawa led a gaggle of reporters representing media from six nations on a 90-minute walkabout of various London neighborhoods that held a few specific and many tenuous connections to England's betrothed prince and the woman he hopes to make his queen.

This was not supposed to be a media tour; it was just the only wedding walk being offered by Britain's tourism bureau during my weeklong London visit in late January. Several of the scheduled dates had been canceled because of lack of interest; when my partner and I strolled up to the origination point, it became apparent the tour on this particular day had only managed to go off because enough journalists were hankering for an interesting royal wedding angle.

In fact, there were no Middleton-mad tourists forking over $24 apiece to learn about the expected future head of state and, as of April 29, Prince William's wife.

Fans didn't miss much. The journey began in the neighborhood of Mayfair, outside the birthplace of Queen Elizabeth II where, we were told, the reigning monarch came into the world by Cesarean section. Umezawa mentioned how beloved the queen's mother was, which somehow prompted her to note how beloved Princess Diana was -- even though Diana was not even born in London, let alone on this block.

"So Kate Middleton has some very big shoes to fill, but we're sure that she has all the qualities and attributes to become a people's princess and become very much loved both in the U.K. and overseas," Umezawa said.

The next stop, Garrard Jewellers, also brought up more about Diana, but at least it had greater relevance to the titular royals of the tour's title. Garrard has been the royal jeweler since 1843 and, as such, was responsible for crafting Lady Di's blue sapphire engagement ring, which William gave Kate. Our guide mentioned how Prince Harry actually inherited the ring after his mother's 1997 death and gave it to his brother.

That was interesting, so I asked why Harry got the ring.

"I don't know, I guess he just wanted it and you know, they said it was fine and then he very kindly offered it over to Prince William when he knew he was about to ask Kate to marry him," she explained, even though she said she didn't know. "Very generous of him, really."

If you say so.

From here, the tour kind of hit the skids. We walked by some office building where Kate Middleton's great-grandfather made his fortune -- he was something nebulously called an "industrialist." Then our guide made note of an outpost of the clothing shop chain Jigsaw.

You may recall famous images of Kate, who was an accessories buyer for Jigsaw earlier in the courtship, being hounded by paparazzi as she left work. Well, that didn't happen here. That happened across town, at Jigsaw's headquarters. Middleton never worked at the Jigsaw outside where we stared and shivered, but "this one is on the route," Umezawa said.

When we passed the famous Ritz Hotel, she acknowledged that "it doesn't have anything directly relevant related to Prince William and Kate Middleton." When we passed White's Gentleman's Club, we learned that this was where Prince Charles had his bachelor party. She had no idea where William's would be but promised, "I'm sure it's going to be a little bit crazier" than his dad's. Right on, then.

On one stop outside the nightclub Mahiki, where the royal couple have partied, Umezawa got a bit dishy. She explained that when William and Kate broke up in 2007, William came in and "allegedly racked up a bill of over 11,000 pounds that the owner waived because of who he is presumably. ... But it's also said that he actually jumped up on the table after the breakup and declared 'I'm free' so, you know.'"

Dubious, I asked Umezawa whether she believed that legend. "I believe what I'm told," she replied.

I wondered, given that the guide appeared to be around the royal couple's age, whether she'd seen or met any of the Windsors. No, she answered, quickly volunteering that she had, however, seen Johnny Depp and Claudia Schiffer. She hastened to add that those sightings had been separate incidents, perhaps to prevent eager journalists from thinking they were privy to yet another big scoop.

The latter stages of the tour involved passing various royal residences, including Clarence House, which is William and Harry's official residence as well as where the engagement was announced in November, and St. James's Palace, where the princes once lived.

There was the Queen's Chapel, where Diana's body had lain for a week before her funeral and where Kate Middleton attended a royal wedding while solo when William was away on military duty. That, we were told, was "a very important sign that the relationship was gaining strength and also her increasing acceptance within the royal family's inner circle."

Umezawa sewed up the journey with a swing by Buckingham Palace, then on to Westminster Abbey, providing a glimpse of the procession path prior to the wedding.

And, of course, she had to bring it full circle -- as in back once more to Princess Diana. Westminster, of course, is where her funeral was, but "I'm sure it's going to be a much happier occasion on the 29th of April. ... And after the wedding, Kate's going to have a lot of titles after her name, but she's going to have to work very hard to earn the hardest title of all -- that of the People's Princess."

With that, Umezawa fared us well, lit up yet another cigarette and vanished rather suddenly into the London fog.