The big day: The BBC are expected to be dedicating up to 1,000 members of staff to cover the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince WilliamThe BBC is to dedicate the best part of a thousand staff to covering the Royal Wedding, it has emerged.
The corporation's bill for broadcasting the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton will run into excess of a £1million, with a sizeable chunk of that going on the army of staff it will be using.
Once again it will dwarf the numbers of workers being used by rivals ITV and Sky News who will have a fraction of the staff on the day.
In total there is expected to be 850 BBC workers covering the event, many in London along the route, but also some getting reaction from other locations in the UK. This includes staff for TV, radio and online.
The BBC has defended the numbers claiming that as host broadcaster it will be responsible for beaming images out around the globe and that the wedding is likely to be the most viewed event of the century.
There will be 550 BBC workers covering the actual event, following the route and the ceremony, with Huw Edwards as the corporation's main presenter.
There is expected to be a further 300 news staff who will be providing separate reports from around Britain.
This includes staff from BBC Breakfast, the Today programme and Radio 5 Live.
Commentators: DJ Fearne Cotton and The One Show host Alex Jones will be covering the Royal WeddingThis compares with 437 staff the BBC sent to the 2008 Olympics in BeiJing and the 295 sent to last year's football World Cup in South Africa.
As well as Edwards, Fiona Bruce and Sophie Raworth will be at the heart of the BBC's coverage, which will also see Radio 1 DJ Fearne Cotton and One Show presenter Alex Jones given presenting roles.
The wedding is expected to be watched by a global audience of two billion.
A BBC spokesman said: 'The Royal Wedding is likely to be the most watched event of the century so far and the BBC is proud to be the host broadcaster.
'Final numbers have yet to be confirmed, but we expect to have 550 people working on the day to bring high quality and distinctive coverage of this special event to a wide audience at home and abroad across TV, Radio and Online.
'In addition BBC News will provide separate reports across the UK and numbers for this are yet to be finalised.'
The venue: Hundreds of BBC staff will be covering the wedding route up to Westminster Abbeysource:dailymail