Former Butler Looks Back at Prince William and Kate Middleton's Low-Key, "Spooky" Halloween Party

Former Royal Butler Grant Harrold just shared all the details from Prince William and Kate Middleton’s “spooky” Halloween party plans. In 2009, before they were the Prince and Princess of Wales, Harrold helped William and Kate host a low-key Halloween party for friends at Balmoral. Speaking to Smooth Spins, the former butler says that “the younger royals used to go away for Halloween, I used to go up to Scotland with Prince William and Kate.”

“I remember back in 2009 they threw a Halloween party at one of the remote cabins on the estate.” Balmoral Castle has several remote cabins on the vast estate, which would be the perfect setting for a spooky evening. Harrold shares that “me and one of the other butlers kitted it all out for Halloween with cobwebs and spiders.”

The royal butlers may have been there to set up and decorate, but William and Kate took over from there. “The kitchens packed up the food for William and Kate to take down [to the cabin]. They took it all down themselves, unpacking it and serving it themselves. They then washed it all back up, packed up the boxes and brought it back up to the main house.”

The party was casual and intimate, a far cry from a fabulous palace bash. Harrold recounts that the party “wasn’t huge but there were about 12 people there.” While Halloween usually calls for costumes, the former royal butler recalls that “they didn’t do fancy dress, they were all in jeans and shirts,” noting they were all in “smart casual dress.”

“William always used to invite his brother [Prince Harry] to things like this,” Harrold reveals, hinting that this wasn’t the only party that William and Kate hosted together. “William and Kate absolutely loved it.”