Ed Miliband and Justine Thornton: wedding bells

London Evening Standard/London


Labour leader Ed Miliband yesterday named the date for his wedding - and side-stepped the thorny issue of who should be his best man.
He will marry long-term partner Justine Thornton on May 27 but brother David will not be given official duties, and nobody else will either. The decision to avoid traditional roles at the wedding, part of Thornton’s vow to “do it in our own way”, provides a neat solution to a tricky dilemma after Ed snatched the Labour leadership crown from David last September. By not picking his elder brother, it could have been seen as a further snub. But giving him the chance to poke fun during the traditional speech best man’s speech also posed risks.
Instead David, who had Ed as his best man when he married musician wife Louise 13 years ago, will be one of around 50 guests at the intimate ceremony near 40-year-old Thornton’s childhood home. Yesterday aides stressed that David was the second person to hear the news after their mother. Doncaster North MP Ed, 41, and his partner of six years, who have two young sons, announced their wedding date in their local newspaper, the Doncaster Free Press. Having previously said he was “too busy” to get married, he said now was the “right time”. “This is going to be a fantastic day for us both and I feel incredibly privileged to be marrying someone so beautiful and who is such a special person,” Ed said.
The civil ceremony for friends and family will take place at country house hotel, Langar Hall, near Nottingham.
Sources close to the couple said a best man was not the only traditional wedding fixture that would be missing —there will be no father of the bride speech and Thornton will not be given away. But the lawyer bride will wear a dress, and there will be a “low-key” stag do and short honeymoon - though the pair stayed tight-lipped on the destination.