Ten couples who married on the same day will join the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at a service of thanksgiving for their diamond wedding anniversary in Westminster Abbey on Monday.

Choristers who sang at the original service in 1947, now in their seventies, will also be among the 2,000 invited guests along with Gordon Brown, Baroness Thatcher, Sir John Major, 30 members of the Royal Family and Royal Household staff, past and present.

Some of the Duke’s German relatives will attend; it was not diplomatic to invite them to the original service. Even his sisters, who married Germans, were not invited. This time the guests will include his niece Grand Duchess Princess Margarita of Baden, the Margrave and Margravine of Baden, and Prince and Princess Ludwig of Baden.

Princess Elizabeth, as she was then, and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten were married at the height of postwar and rationing; like all brides at the time the Princess had to save up her clothing ration coupons for her wedding dress.

Given the nation’s hard times the couple prepared for a quiet, simple wedding. But Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister, favoured a grand occasion to help lift the gloom that hung over the country. Churchill, then Leader of the Opposition, called it “a flash of colour on the hard road we travel”.

They were married in front of 2,600 guests by Dr Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Princess had eight bridesmaids, led by her sister Princess Margaret; Philip had his cousin David, Marquess of Milford Haven, as best man. The couple received 2,500 wedding presents, including Meissen pots from Pope Pius XII and a thoroughbred filly from the Aga Khan.

The Queen is the first British monarch to celebrate 60 years of marriage. Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, will give an address, Prince William will give a reading and Dame Judi Dench will read a poem by Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate. On Tuesday, the actual anniversary, the couple will have a brief private stopover in Malta, before continuing their journey to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Uganda.

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