Big names on the guest list included Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, TV personality and writer Coleen Rooney, broadcaster and TV presenter Kate Garraway and Sir Ed Davey. However, despite his wife, Duchess Sophie, attending, Edward was miles away carrying out his royal duties on the same day.
On Wednesday, the Duke visited Durham to attend a number of events.
According to the Court Circular, the official record of the Royal Family’s engagements, on Wednesday morning, Edward attended the opening of Fujifilm Biotechnologies’ Single-Use Biomanufacturing Facility and Bioprocess Innovation Centre in Billingham.
He was received by the Lord Lieutenant of Durham, Dame Susan Snowdon.
In the afternoon, the King’s brother, in his role as patron of Friends of Wells Cathedral Grand Organ Appeal, visited Harrison and Harrison Limited, a company based in Durham that specialises in building and restoring pipe organs.
In a printed message addressed to his guests on Wednesday, the King praised the millions of carers looking after a loved one across the country, as well as the estimated 1.6 million people employed in the adult social care sector.
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The message read: “My wife and I are delighted to welcome you here this evening as we celebrate and give thanks to those remarkable individuals who dedicate their lives to the care of others.
“Across the United Kingdom today, there are some five million people providing unpaid care to a loved one.
“That is one in every 10 adults who, alongside the demands of their own lives, have taken upon their shoulders the sacred and selfless responsibility of caring for another human being.
“Alongside these wonderfully altruistic individuals stand the estimated 1.6 million professionals who work in social care – the nurses, care workers, support staff and countless others who have chosen to make compassion their vocation.
“Together, these two great pillars of care – and those charities and organisations which support them – form the foundation upon which so many families and society itself depends.”