Soccer star David Beckham will be there with his pop star wife Victoria. Elton John is attending with partner David Furnish.

The guest list for the April 29 union of Prince William and Kate Middleton is still being kept secret, but details have begun to leak out, with some coming forward to say they are attending and the Mail on Sunday newspaper claiming to have the official invitation roster.

The palace dismissed the newspaper's list as speculation Sunday.

It won't be clear until the day how the royal couple has balanced the protocol demands that they invite statesmen, diplomats, religious leaders, politicians and the like with invitations to the people they really want to see, particularly the crowd they made friends with when they met and fell in love at St. Andrews University in Scotland.

Kate Reardon, editor of high-society magazine Tatler, said many prominent Britons acted as if they didn't really care about receiving an invitation while secretly checking the mail every day to see if the coveted embossed invite had arrived.

"Everyone's been hoping," she said.

William and Middleton have showed their modern side by inviting a number of close friends, including some former sweethearts, the newspaper said.

The wedding is not technically a state event, which somewhat limits the protocol requirements applied to the guest list. But royal obligations still dictate that a large number of the 1,900 or so seats go to guests from the world of politics, not actual friends of the couple.

The couple have also invited many guests from the charities they work with, and Middleton has used her influence to invite the butcher, shopkeeper and pub owner from her home village of Bucklebury.

President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle were not invited and many other international leaders are also expected to be watching on TV, not from a seat at Westminster Abbey.

It is not clear if treasured Brits from the world of stage and screen and pop music will be on the list.

(Read by Renee Haines. Renee Haines is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

點擊查看更多雙語新聞

(Agencies)