King Charles‘s goddaughter, India Hicks, who was a bridesmaid at his wedding to Diana, has recalled a ‘nerve-wracking’ encounter with the late royal in her younger years.
The glamorous British businesswoman, who is now based in the Bahamas, remembered the occasion that her ‘thoughtful’ godfather tasked her with taking the family Christmas card photo – despite being ‘young and inexperienced’ at the time.
The 57-year-old, who is the daughter of Lady Pamela and David Hicks, was invited by Charles to photograph himself alongside his wife, Princess Diana, and their sons William and Harry.
She revealed in an interview with Hello! magazine: ‘So, I went to Highgrove and photographed him and Diana and the boys, which was quite nerve-wracking.’
At the time, India had recently finished photography school and was ‘quite young and inexperienced’, but her ‘thoughtful’ godfather entrusted her with the job anyway.
She said that Charles had taken a big ‘risk’ when employing her as photographer since she ‘could have been a complete idiot with a camera’.
The fashion designer called the King ‘a very considerate godfather’, and spoke affectionately of his dutiful habit of always remembering to write Christmas and birthday cards.
King Charles ‘s goddaughter, India Hicks , who was a bridesmaid at his wedding to Diana, has recalled a ‘nerve-wracking’ encounter with the Princess during her early days as a photographer (pictured)
India is the goddaughter of King Charles (pictured together on her Instagram account, when India was a child)
She also praised the monarch’s vision for the future, as well as his long-standing commitment to combating climate change and backing for green energy. She said he was ‘ahead’ of the curve’ in his progressive beliefs.
India was one of five bridesmaids at Charles and Diana’s wedding in 1981 and was aged 12 at the time. Her mother was a lady-in-waiting to the late Queen Elizabeth II and cousin of Prince Philip.
The mother-of-five has caused a stir recently after sharing domestic tips – drawing parallels with Meghan Markle‘s Netflix cooking show.
The business mogul took to Instagram last week where she shared her tips for hosting, declaring even ‘an unskilled culinary idiot’ can do the job.
In the clip, she shared how she recently prepared to host guests, supermodels Jerry Hall and Helen Christensen.
It draws striking parallels with Meghan’s performance in Netflix series, With Love, Meghan, in which the former actress shared her own vision of domestic bliss, including how to arrange aesthetically pleasing fruit boards.
‘It seems that trays and platters laden with edible displays are on-trend for a reason,’ India said. ‘First, even an unskilled culinary idiot like me can gather together some inventive ingredients and lay them out temptingly.’
While Meghan, 43, has been widely panned for her polished-but-bland show, India’s account of hosting drinks at her Bahamian island home is refreshingly ‘unpolished’, self-deprecating and chaotic.
India was a bridesmaid at Charles and Diana’s wedding in 1981
Speaking in an interview with Hello!, the glamorous British businesswoman remembered the occasion that her ‘thoughtful’ godfather tasked her with taking the family Christmas card photo – despite being ‘young and inexperienced’ at the time
‘It’s hard to say what creates the perfect drinks hour,’ India said. ‘In reality, who has the time to make it perfect, especially since most of us haven’t slept since 1997.’
Revealing her tips, she said: ‘Jerry Hall and Helena Christensen came over for last minute drinks.
‘I ran around like a headless chicken lighting candles, putting on music and setting up our plastic folding table, and spreading out my newest Pomegranate tablecloth, which didn’t quite fit.
‘I worried, only briefly, about them seeing our dining table also laid up for a family supper in our courtyard, would they think they have been included for dinner as well as drinks?
‘Unbreakable plastic plates (also from Pomegranate) and good fake palm leaves were rushed out onto the drinks table and lots of stinky cheese, which David says, doesn’t go off, it just changes it’s name. Intimate, unpolished, and slightly haphazard, this is how I entertain.’
India, who moved to the Bahamas to embrace an ‘unconventional’ life, married David Flint Wood in 2021, having already had five children together.
She had long insisted there were no plans to marry the former advertising executive, even after five children together.
‘Having lived a fairly unconventional life together on a small island in the Bahamas for more than two decades, we decided that our wedding should, in contrast, be very conventional,’ India wrote in an article for Vogue.
Speaking to the Daily Mail before the big day, she said: ‘He very much asked me to marry him. I said: “I love you dearly, but no. I don’t want to be a wife.” I didn’t.
‘I wanted to be this fiercely independent woman. I wanted children, and I wanted them to have his name, but I didn’t want to be married.’
She later admitted: ‘I didn’t really expect being married to feel any different than not being married. We had been locked in a loving relationship for 26 years already.
‘But it took my breath away to find how spiritual it felt to walk into the church on the arm of my eldest son and to say those vows to David in front of all our friends and family, in the church where I had been christened and where my father lay buried just outside. It felt intensely intimate.’