Here is the first picture of Autumn Kelly entering St. George’s Chapel for her wedding to Peter Phillips, the Queen’s oldest grandson.

Autumn Kelly on the arm of her father before her wedding

The picture was taken from a large TV screen and the back view was the only one available.

The big day dawns for Peter Phillips and Autumn Kelly with controversy swirling around the supposedly private wedding in St George’s Chapel, Windsor.

The Queen and Peter Phillips together on a cruise

Indeed, so private will it be that only Hello! magazine photographers will be allowed into the church for the ceremony and to Frogmore House for the reception. A small number of selected snappers will be permitted shots of the couple on the steps of the Chapel after the event. A single official photograph will be released to commemorate the occasion.

Buckingham Palace officials have said they knew nothing of the arrangements for the Hello! photographers, nor that they had been sold exclusive rights to the wedding for Wednesday’s edition.

It’s clear the Queen did not know either, but will surely be aware of it now, following her return from a State visit to Turkey with Prince Philip.

Peter Phillips and his wife-to-be seem to have placed the Queen and the Duke in the embarrassing position of emulating the likes of Victoria Beckham and Paris Hilton for this occasion.

One can imagine the Duke’s response. The Queen will probably be more emolient but must be displeased that she has been undermined in this way. Simply going to the event will make her complicit in the WAGish elements of the day.

The public should not have to pay for access, via a celebrity magazine, to the wedding of the Monarch’s grandson, which is partly supported by public funds.

At least Prince William is well out of it, hidden away in the African bush.

In the ancient annals of You Couldn’t Make It Up, the latest reports from what must be the weirdest wedding of the year are, true-to-form, jaw-droppingly inconceivable.

If in my piece yesterday I had speculated that Kate Middleton would go to Peter Phillips and Autumn Kelly’s nuptials tomorrow, but boyfriend Prince William would attend a Maasai ceremony in the African bush, you may have suspected my sanity.

Yet that’s what appears to be happening. Both the Mail and the Sun have brought out their top guns to hammer home the news. The Sun’s Duncan Larcombe actually filed his piece in Kenya, possibly undercover and dressed as a Maasai warrior. While the Mail’s Richard Kay and Rebecca English strut their stuff with serious quotes from inside sources.

On balance, and in the absence of more ducking and weaving, we must assume this is correct — provisionally. Where’s the fat lady when you need her?

The Mail has a senior Royal source revealing, “Prince William is going to be out of the country this weekend on a long standing prior engagement. It’s an unfortunate clash but he spoke to his cousin Peter and he is fine with the situation. His girlfriend [Kate Middleton] will be going in his absence.”

A friend of the Prince also said, “It was a difficult decision as Peter and William are very close but the two talked it through. William felt he had to go to Kenya because the Craigs asked him first and it was the fairest thing to do. That’s why William was so keen to go to Peter’s stag party last month.”

It all sounds authentic enough. However, the Sun is reporting that the decision has baffled William’s staff at Clarence House. I can believe that.

If the Maasai do is a long-standing arrangement, dating from before Peter’s announcement, why didn’t William make his excuses at the time and, crucially, let it be known in the public prints? That would have avoided the confused press headlines and pointless speculation of recent weeks.

Of course, it may be that William didn’t make up his mind until the last moment — perhaps pushed to it by the Hello! involvement, as we ourselves have suggested.

Worse, he may be taking advice from Prime Minister Gordon Brown. “Dinee decide until the last minute, laddie. That’s what I do, and look where it got me.”

Royal Anecdotes’s alternative advice is, “Never dither, never try to emulate politicians, if you’re going, go, if you’re not going, don’t. Tell the world, and stick to it.”

This business does not enhance your reputation, Sir.

One welcome enhancement, though, is Kate’s status within the Royal Family. It now seems clear that an official engagement is mapped out to upgrade the unofficial one that many of us have suspected for some time.

Updated 13.05 BST
We are hearing that there’s a lot of muttering about the private nature of tomorrow’s wedding. Many are complaining that to hold the event behind closed doors, while the only public view is through the pages of Hello! magazine, is simply not worthy of the Royal Family. This is unprecedented.

It seems that Peter and Autumn will not venture outside Windsor Castle walls. Only a small group of photographers will be allowed in to photograph them on the chapel steps. They will then take a carriage ride along a secluded route to the reception at Frogmore House, which is inside closed grounds.

This is a poor show all round. Even a “private” Royal wedding should always have an open public face, not one sold to the highest bidder.

Do you sometimes get the feeling you are being led a merry dance, or up the garden path and down an Irish country mile? That’s what the wedding of Peter Phillips to Autumn Kelly on Saturday at Windsor, is beginning to feel like.

The wedding has been full of contradictions from the moment it was announced.

First, it would be held at Windsor, but then it was moved to Scotland — to the church at Balmoral. Now it’s back at Windsor again in St. George’s Chapel and with a full complement of Royal guests.

Then we were assured that Peter would renounce his rights of succession to the Throne, as his bride-to-be is a Roman Catholic. But hold on, Autumn will now renounce her Catholicism instead.

The situation has not been much clearer over the girlfriend duo either. Chelsy Davy wasn’t invited at first, but Kate Middleton was. Now Chelsy is invited but Kate won’t go.

Prince William would be a supporter (best man), then an usher. Now he’s going on holiday. His change of mind is alternatively given as a reluctance to see Kate upstage Autumn, or as a gesture against the pre-wedding publicity.

Could all this be a deliberate ploy to keep the press and public guessing, or is the whole wedding a fiasco worthy of Gordon Brown?

Peter is known for being an intensely private man with few pretensions. The wedding, we were told, would be low-key and mostly off-camera. Now the couple has sold the wedding to Hello! magazine, which published a 20-page spread last week. Hello! also has some rights to exclusive pictures of the wedding itself. The fee is reported to be £500,000 ($1m).

It does seem to be a strange way to organize what is, in all but name, a Royal wedding at Windsor in the presence of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

Or might they be delayed on their return from a State visit to Turkey?

Anything could happen between now and Saturday. We’ve got our ears to the ground. Both of them.