The rest lies in the realms of conjecture (which even the Duke of Westminster doesn’t own). Perhaps James Raynor made the list? The Chief Executive of Grosvenor Property UK looks after much of the Duke’s £10 billion portfolio, which includes land in Tokyo, Stockholm, and an entire island off Vancouver, and recently saw him rocket to the top of the Sunday Times’ Under-40 Rich List. And if that business relationship earns Raynor an invite, might Hugh extend the sentiment back a decade and ask Bio-Bean founder Arthur Kay? The Duke worked with the Forbes 30-under-30 entrepreneur at the coffee bean recycling company after graduating with a degree in Countryside Management from Newcastle University.
Lady Edwina Louise Grosvenor and Dan Snow were the picture of elegance at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in 2018 – no doubt they will look equally as dashing for the Duke of Westminster
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It would be rude, some could argue, if the Grosvenors left the Cholmondeleys off the guest list. While Lady Rose Hanbury and her husband David, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley, don’t currently live in the family seat of Cholmondeley Castle (preferring Norfolk’s Houghton Hall), it’s so close to Chester Cathedral that they’d practically be able to walk home. Lady Hanbury’s son, Oliver, recently joined Prince George as a Page of Honour for King Charles’ Coronation. As for Prince George himself – well, it’s a school night, he has SATs.
Spare a thought, finally, for one Hugh Audley. His attendance at the wedding might be complicated by the unfortunate fact of his death in 1662, but he was the owner of the ‘swampy meads’ west of London that Sir Thomas Grosvenor inherited when he married Audley’s great niece, 12-year-old Mary Davies, back in 1677. The wedding of the year, lest we forget, is coming out of his drawstring leather pouch.