DPRK Ambassador Attends William-Catherine Nuptials
DPRK Ambassador to Great Britain, Cha So'ng-nam (Ja Song Nam) (Photo: Flickr)
DPRK Ambassador to Great Britain, Cha So’ng-nam [Ja Song Nam] attended the 29 April [Friday] wedding ceremony of Prince William to Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey. Cha was one of the approximately 1,900 invited guests to attend the church ceremony. Cha is also the nonresident ambassador to three other countries and rumored to be one of two unofficial representatives to the EU.
It is not presently clear if he attended any of the events that followed the ceremony. According to a selected guest list published on the royal wedding’s official blog<http://www.officialroyalwedding2011.org/blog/2011/April/23/Selected-Guest-List-for-the-Wedding-Service-at-Westminster-Abbey> on 23 April [Saturday]: “Amongst the guests at The Wedding Service are all Heads of Mission in London representing countries with which the United Kingdom has normal diplomatic relations and Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenants for the United Kingdom. These individuals will not be accompanied by their spouses or partners.”
Cha accepted the invitation and his name was reported on 15 April among guests to the wedding. The Telegraph reported:
Around 1,900 people have been invited to the service at Westminster Abbey, with 650 people of those going on to the lunchtime reception at Buckingham Palace given by the Queen and just 300 people attending the evening dinner at Buckingham Palace, which will be given by the Prince of Wales.
Over 1,000 of those attending are either family or friends of the Prince or Miss Middleton. Additionally, there are over 40 members of foreign royal families, over 200 members of government, parliament and the diplomatic corps, and approximately 80 people the Prince has worked with at his charities.
Names of note include:
Celebrities:
David and Victoria Beckham, Guy Ritchie, Sir Clive Woodward, Rowan Atkinson, Ben Fogle
The Middleton’s list:
Gary Goldsmith, Miss Middleton’s uncle who was caught on film allegedly dealing drugs. Alex Loudon, the boyfriend of Pippa Middleton. Sir John Madejski, the chairman of Reading football club. Richard Benyon, the Tory MP for Newbury.
Colleagues
All 27 members of the Prince’s search and rescue flight C Flight 22 at RAF Valley in Anglesey have been invited to the wedding, along with their partners.
The Mustique Set:
Roger Pritchard and Brian Alexander, of the Mustique Company; Richard Schaffer, the island’s tennis coach; Gregory Allen, yoga teacher; Michael Bunbury, the local doctor; Basil Charles, owner of Basil’s Bar.
The exes:
Willem Marx, whom Miss Middleton dated at school, and Rupert Finch, whom she dated at university. Jecca Craig, reportedly Prince Williams’s first love; Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe; Arabella Musgrove; Rose Farquhar.
Government list:
Includes Timur Kuanyshev, a Kazakh tycoon who made generous donations to the Royal Opera House. Ja Song-nam, North Korea’s ambassador.
In 1981 and 1982, the DPRK issued several series of commemorative stamps focused on the wedding of Prince Charles to Diana, the one-year anniversary of that wedding, Diana’s 21st birthday and the birth of Prince William. These are neither the first nor only non-DPRK or non-ideological stamps released by the country.
From a 2002 DPRK stamp catalogue are a series of 1981 commemorative stamps for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer (Photo: Korea Stamp Corporation)
Commemorative stamps issued in 1981 by DPRK for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana (Photo: Korea Stamp Corporation)
From a 2002 DPRK stamp catalogue, commemorative stamps from 1982 on the birth of Prince William and a depicting the British royal family (Photo: Korea Stamp Corporation)
