While Prince William and Kate Middleton have decided to forgo asking for salad spinners, napkins and assorted tchotchkes and knick-knacks for their wedding, some of their guests, including other royal families and heads of state, may in fact ignore their request, experts say.
Gifts given on behalf of a country, for example, may include items that represent that nation's culture or history. Prince Charles and Lady Diana, for instance, received a haul of items from Canada that included a canoe, wood furniture and an original painting by artist Robert Bateman.
There is no word yet from the Prime Minister's Office what Canada's official gifts to the royal couple will be. But perhaps Stephen Harper and his wife, Laureen, whose attendance at the wedding is now in doubt due to the election campaign, should consider carefully before wrapping up a quintessential piece of Canadiana.
"Royal weddings have received quite useless things," William Hanson, royal protocol expert and consultant for The English Manner, told CTV.ca in a telephone interview from London. "This is not a slight on Canada at all, but a canoe? We do have rivers in Britain, but we don't many that are canoe-able."
Many gifts to the Royal Family from heads of state and other dignitaries, whether for weddings or occasions such as official visits, usually end up stored in a vault under one of the palaces or put on display in a museum.
Royal watcher Hilary Brown suspects that in keeping with the royal couple's request for charitable donations in lieu of gifts, included in Canada's official present may be an award or scholarship in their name.
"They have done it in the past," Brown told CTV's Canada AM earlier this year. "They did that with the Yorks, they did that with Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones. And it's quite possible, particularly given the feelings of Prince William and Kate, that they might do something like that again."
Indeed, one of the first gifts to be announced after William and Kate went public with their engagement was a 70,000-pound scholarship for underprivileged students at St. Andrews's University, where William and Kate met.
But whether it's a charitable donation or a set of matryoshka dolls, the couple will not accept gifts from corporations looking to cash in on a royal wedding. Royal protocol forbids them from accepting presents from corporate entities.
"Any gifts coming from companies will be returned," Brown said. "They can't allow themselves to be used as, you know, a kind of publicity gimmick for companies."
It may seem appropriate and even expected for a couple that not only already lives together but is wealthy beyond most commoners' expectations to forgo a registry. But William and Kate are the first British royal couple to do so, a decision that will likely set the tone for future royal weddings, Hanson said.
It is customary for a royal couple to set up a registry at a London shop, such as Peter Jones, Thomas Goode or The General Trading Company, which is where Prince Charles and Lady Diana registered for items such as a gourmet barbecue and a pair of Cockatoos.
But Hanson believes that Prince William and Kate's decision is likely to go from oddity to "the norm" for royal weddings quite quickly.
"Since the last royal wedding, as a society Britain and indeed the world has moved on. And we have become, rightly or wrongly, slightly less deferential," Hanson said.
"We're coming out of a recession, and people would question why are we spending money…when all of the royal palaces have this probably eight times over? So it's almost a bit greedy to ask for that."
A website devoted to collecting donations, royalweddingcharityfund.org, lists more than 26 charities "that have a particular resonance with Prince William and Miss Middleton and reflect issues in which the couple have been particularly interested in their lives to date," according to a statement.
The organizations include children's charities, agencies that provide palliative and home care, support for military personnel and their families and animal and environmental conservation.
While many of the charities are based in the U.K., a handful from across the Commonwealth will benefit, including the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary.
Hanson said the request is an appropriate gesture given that William and Kate "don't need the money."
"One of the royal family's major strengths is the work that they do for charity, whether they are getting married or not," Hanson said. "Charity is what 90 per cent of their time is taken up doing. And so it's sort of a continuation of that, really."
Will Charles gift the throne?
Aside from canoes from the colonies, there is one gift that royal watchers are abuzz with speculation about -- what will Prince Charles bestow on the young man many would prefer become king?
Brown recalls a cartoon that was published in a British magazine after the couple announced their engagement. The drawing of Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla Parker-Bowles, contained two dialogue bubbles. One, over Charles, had him wondering what to give as a wedding present. The other, over Camilla, read: "The throne?"
While such a gesture is unlikely, royal watchers expect Prince Charles to hand over the keys to a very posh piece of property. Some have suggested his beloved Highgrove House, in Gloucestershire, where the Prince of Wales lives and presides over an organic farm and other projects related to environmental sustainability.
But Brown believes the property to be too dear to Charles to give up.
"He loves Highgrove," Brown says. "That's where he's laid out his gardens, planted his organic vegetable patch. You know, that's where all the plants are that he talks to all the time. He couldn't possibly give that up."
Brown, and much of the British media, speculates he will give the young couple a home in the Harewood Park Estates, in Herefordshire, where Charles recently built an eco-friendly six-bedroom house.
"That possibly might be his present to his son and future daughter-in-law," Brown says.
