The Plum Protocols
Conde-Nast-bred chick litterateur, SoHo House fixture, distant descendent of some Duke or another and (at least according to the nickname-loving British tabloids) "pushy socialite, upper-crust novelist, professional posh totty and designer clotheshorse" Victoria "Plum" Sykes famously used her dumping by a former fiance, painter Damien Loeb, as inspiration for her novel Bergdorf Blondes. Now, she's managed to get engaged again. Plum and her husband-to-be, Toby Rowland, son of the late and unfortunately-named Brit entrepreneur "Tiny" Rowland, have set a date for late July and are leaving nothing to chance. The bride-to-be, who famously (and inappropriately) wore brown to her sister Lucy's wedding a few years back, has issued a booklet to instruct American guests what is and isn't considered "good form" at English weddings. In today's Evening Standard, bad-boy novelist Will Self writes,
In my experience, even the most tony English wedding requires no manual of etiquette. What possible rules can govern tedious, unfunny speeches, unbridled drunken licentiousness, and ruinously unpredictable downpours?
—MG
Descendents of John Russell, the 4th Duke of Bedford [Paul Theroff's Royal Genealogy Site]