The royal couple

After a 12-year courtship, Elton and David are finally to tie the knot, and, as befits such a regal event, the nuptials are to take place in Windsor. Stuart Husband charts the happy couple's road from rock aristocracy to fully-fledged national institution

You'd be looking at Elton John for a long time before the words "shrinking" and "violet" came to mind; though in his mid-Seventies pomp - the Eiffel Tower hats, the cocaine binges, the demands on his entourage to 'do something about the wind' when it disturbed his composure - you might have been reminded of the rapacious self-regard and insatiable id of Violet Elizabeth Bott.

Today, after innumerable fresh starts - no more alcohol, no more drugs, no more eating disorders, no more dressing up as Donald Duck - he occupies a place in British public life somewhere to the right of Kenneth Williams and to the left of the Queen Mother. His remaining manias - shopping, random tirades against the likes of Madonna and the Taiwanese paparazzi, having his body shaved every six weeks - are at the cuddlier end of the obsessive/compulsive spectrum, and even his hair seems to have emerged, remade and remodelled, from some kind of 12-step programme.

For today's comparative stability, Elton can thank - in fact, can always be prevailed on to thank - his partner of 12 years ("that's like 120 in gay years", he was recently heard to remark), former ad-exec David Furnish. The pair met when Furnish was persuaded to attend a gathering at Elton's Windsor mansion ("I wasn't keen to go," he said; "I expected Elton to be this strange, glittery creature"). They cemented their bond over a Chinese take-away. Furnish weathered early storms that had seen off previous boyfriends of Elton's - "you know," he says, "that phase where I buy them a car" (a pillar-box red Bentley Continental GT worth £110,000 in Furnish's case, to match Elton's own), "take them on tour, and rob them of their lives" - and the pair have eclipsed faint-hearts like Hugh & Liz, and Imran & Jemima, to become the No.1 fixtures on the worldwide party circuit, throwing unfeasibly opulent charity bashes, acting as serial Godfathers to the likes of Damian Hurley and Brooklyn Beckham and perpetual "walkers" for unsquired starlets like Lulu and Geri Halliwell. They have even - in the case of celebrity cobbler Patrick Cox - acted as partner-brokers to the rich and famous.

While maturity is in the eye of the beholder - last Valentine's Day, Furnish's present to Elton was a £500,000 necklace with the word "cock" spelled out in diamonds, while Elton's riposte was a diamond ring bearing the legend "Fuck you" - the pair have talked of "lifetime commitment", with Elton revealing that he has bequeathed the majority of his £160m fortune to his partner.

He has also confirmed that they're planning to marry in Windsor in December, when civil unions between gay couples become legal.

So what can we expect from the court of Elton & David?

Think Versailles without those messy beheadings but with Versace china, or the last days of the Roman Empire minus the debauchery, but with the periwigs intact, and you'll be getting there...

The Palaces

Elton and David have five lovely homes: the Windsor mansion (containing their collection of 'celebrity caricature' dolls, and the Italianate garden designed by Sir Roy Strong featuring a 12ft obelisk); the Holland Park pied-a-terre (featuring roomfuls of fresh flowers; "he smells like the Chelsea Flower Show," says an acquaintance); the chateau in the hills above Nice (which serves as a kind of luxury bolthole for distressed megastars, with both Liz Hurley and Geri Halliwell); the Venetian palazzo (containing a glut of porcelain and walk-in wardrobes ); and the house in Atlanta (hung with Elton's collection of modern photographic masters, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, and "tons of male nudes"). "It can make life complicated," says Elton of his property portfolio, "but it also keeps it interesting."

The Parties

If you're going to mix it with E&D, be prepared to discuss Berkshire house prices with Sir David Frost while decked out in Regency crinolines at their annual White Tie & Tiara Ball in the grounds of the Windsor mansion, or to swap bon mots with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie while rattling your Harry Winstons and bearing your Best Ligger statuette at their post-Oscars bash. The key to a good party hasn't changed from his Seventies high-water mark: "Glitz. Glamour. Sparkly things. Wit. And excess. Always excess."

The Retinue

As well as the constant stream of Old and New Best Friend comings and goings (if it's Wednesday it must be Rod and Penny round for high tea at Atlanta, with Tina Turner still bawling away in the West Wing at Windsor, and surely Liz Hurley's going to make an appearance at some point). E&D travel with a permanent staff of more than a dozen including a tennis coach, Bob Halley (Elton's personal assistant of more than 20 years), Paul, Elton's hairdresser - the only person in the world who can be entrusted to fluff and tease Elton's intricate weavery; and 22 dogs including Elton's cocker spaniel Arthur.

The Schedule

"I don't know anyone who moves as fast as Elton does," sighs Furnish. "He lives at warp speed."

Currently, Elton is in mid-residency at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas while raging over transatlantic phone and fax lines with last-minute adjustments to his musical stewardship of 'Billy Eliot - The Musical'; he's then planning a world tour. Furnish has visitors to receive, parties to attend, diaries to co-ordinate, charitable sums to distribute, and film projects to gestate as CEO of their movie company Rocket Pictures.

The Jewels

A simple gold engagement band was spotted on Elton's ring finger last week, an unlikely sight on a man more usually seen wearing ostrich feathered tiaras. And an uncharacteristic choice of love token from Furnish, the man who last Valentine's Day, gave his partner a £500,000 necklace with the word "cock" spelled out in diamonds.

The Wardrobe

"I've always had a body-image problem," bemoans Elton - not something that anyone who's seen him bouncing on a piano dressed in 3ft boots with mauve feathers sticking out of his head would necessarily disagree with. Thus, the flamboyant camouflage - the "ZOOM" glasses, feather boas, Versace silks, and, latterly, the stealth Yamamoto tailoring. There was certainly no room for Elton in the closet with this V&A collection-to-be packed in there - a "retrospective" of his glasses and stage costumes has already been seen at Florence's Uffizi Gallery - despite periodic raiding for Aids charity jumble sales. Furnish meanwhile, editor-at-large for 'GQ' and no slouch in the clotheshorse department himself, has had muse status conferred on him by Savile Row tailor Richard James and US tailor Thom Browne. While their idea of dressing down is his'n'his Versace suits, "scrubbing up" in E&D's universe means the swaggering Louis XIV finery the pair sported at Elton's 50th birthday party back in 1997.