The Duchess of Alba prepares for her wedding

She marries a man 24 years her junior in a private ceremony in Sevilla. The 84 year old Duchess of Alba is making the last preparations ahead of her wedding on Wednesday despite, she says, that none of her family or friends have encouraged her relationship with Alfonso Díez. Indeed there have been serious family ruptures over the marriage plans. She has said the she is the only who had continued forward meeting only opinions in her contra, ‘until they had realised the calibre of man he is’.

The XVIII Duchess of Alba, full name María del Rosario Cayetana Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Francisca Fitz-James Stuart y de Silva, holds 46 noble titles and is 20 times a Grandee of Spain. It is said that she is able to cross the country from North to South without having to set foot on any land that is not her own.

This is the Duchesses third marriage, after being widowed twice. ‘I am anti-divorce and anti-abortion and anti all those atrocities’, she says. ‘I am Catholic and that is why I am getting married for a third time’. Born in 1926 the Duchess has said that she is a person who believes that it is never too late to be happy.

Alfonso Díez was born 24 years after the Duchess in 1950, and despite his age has not been married before. He has proved a successful businessman and is currently a civil servant and has a public relations company. The couple have already been congratulated by King Juan Carlos who held a private audience with the couple in the Zarzuela Palace in Madrid at the end of last month.

The wedding itself will be an intimate ceremony to be held in the Duchess’ Sevilla home, the Palacio de Dueñas, the scene of the non-stop arrival of flowers and gifts over recent days. The priest is a personal friend, Ignacio Jiménez Sanchez Dalp, and several Andalucia politicians are expected to be invited along with Victorio & Lucchino, designers of the dress, still a well-guarded secret.

There will be a banquet for 30 guests, and rumour is the menu comes from Arzak. Gazpacho will be followed by ajo blanco and then rice with lobster. Main course is beef wellington before sorbets to clear the palate for the cake.

Sensationalist magazine ‘Interviu’ has this week used the wedding to find never before published ‘nude and radiant’ photos of the Duchess taken in Ibiza 30 years ago when Cayetana was 56. All such magazines have been following the build up to the wedding for months, not least because Alfonso has a brother called Pedro, who was an intimate friend of Jesús Aguirre, and Jesús was the Duchess second husband.

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