La Paz: A Bolivian couple who hadn`t been able to afford a formal wedding reception got some royal treatment Friday when they shared their day of matrimony with a British prince and his bride.
Britain`s ambassador to Bolivia invited Fabianna Rivera, 24, and Alejandro Antezana, 29, to the embassy for a champagne toast to honor the marriage rite the two planned later in the day in a Roman Catholic church.
The pair — she a secretary, he a video game parlor manager — were chosen for the honor from among a number of Bolivian couples who planned marriages to coincide with the Westminster Abbey union of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
The latter were several hours wed when Rivera and Antezana arrived in Ambassador Nigel Baker`s car for the embassy event.
The couple beamed as Baker gave them a porcelain platter embossed with the intertwined initials of the future king and the commoner betrothed into royalty.
"All us young girls dream and hope for our own prince and I am sure that I`m marrying mine," said Rivera, who was raised by her mother after her father died when she was 8.
"There is no better way to celebrate a wedding — than with another wedding," Baker said in the embassy`s neatly trimmed garden.
He had been up since before dawn to watch Kate and William tie the knot.
"I`ve learned about the human side in Bolivia and we wanted to link the royal wedding with the wedding of a Bolivian couple to celebrate the day," Baker told a news agency earlier.
Bureau Report
