Friends of wealthy socialite Primrose Dunlop are saddened by the failing health of the heiress who was famously left at the alter when her bridegroom 'prince' ran off with the best man on the eve of their lavish wedding.
Dunlop, 67, the daughter of Australian society doyenne Lady Potter and an heiress to a $60 million fortune, has been put in full-time care with frontotemporal dementia.
Just before Christmas, some of Australia's most prominent women - including rock publicist Patti Mostyn, author Janise Beaumont, painter Mary Pinnock and publicist-turned-celebrant Glen-Marie Frost - learned of her sad decline for the first time.
Expressing sadness, dismay and genuine affection for 'Princess Primmie' - who was witty, sharp, with a great sense of fun yet unpretentious - they said it was 'a horrible way to go' for 'such a lovely girl ... a dreadful disease'.
They also reflected on the 'brilliant and exciting' life Primrose had, her high-spirited encounters with the rich and famous, and the ill-fated Venice nuptials that made world headlines.
What made Primrose Dunlop a global cause celebre in April 1990 was meant to be Primrose's marriage at Venice's Basilica di San Pietro to diminutive Qantas flight steward Lorenzo Montesini.
Primrose herself dismissed the idea the union was her entree into European 'royalty' as 'a load of rubbish', but that didn't stop the gossip.
Lorenzo Montesini claimed to hold the titles of Prince Giustiniani, Count of the Phanaar, Knight of St Sophia and Baron Alexandroff.
Primrose Dunlop and Lorenzo's Montesini's (above) intended marriage became a full-blown scandal when the groom - 'Prince Giustiniani, Count of Phanaar - eloped with the best man
Robert Straub (above) and Montesini had become lovers on a 'moonlit' beach during the Vietnam war, but that was all a 'secret' until the lavish wedding plans became a notorious social fiasco
Society royalty, Lady Primrose Potter AM (centre, in 2018 with grandaughter Zofia, left) planned a glittering wedding in Venice where daughter Primmie (right) would become a princess
He also had a partner of two decades, Robert Straub, who Lorenzo had met as a 19-year-old soldier in Vietnam, and been with since an 'encounter on a beach at moonlight' on the South China Sea.
Primrose, who had been a social writer, at the time worked for Lord McAlpine, British Conservative Party fundraiser and developer who turned the remote West Australian town of Broome into a famed tourism destination,
Primrose was to become Lorenzo's princess in a dress inspired by Balenciaga and wearing a diadem of gold oak leaves given to her by Lorenzo.
Three days of lavish celebrations would culminate in the wedding on Easter Monday 1990 at Venice's Basilica di San Pietro.
The pre-nuptial parties at the Countess Maria Pia Ferrie's opulent palazzo on Venice's Grand Canal, one of Europe's most fashionable addresses, were meant to be the high point of the season for 70 rich and fashionable guests.
Lady Potter and Primrose's stepfather, multimillionaire stockbroker Sir Ian Potter, had invited American author Barbara Taylor Bradford, and American hostess Evelyn Lambert.
Sir Ian's daughter Caroly is married to Simon Betterman Parker Bowles, then a brother-in-law to Camilla who later became the Duchess of Cornwall.
The lavish nuptials planned after three days of celebration sin Venice (above) were abandoned when the groom and best man took off for Paris after an argument about money
Primrose, above in classic high spirits with author Janise Beaumont, has been put in permanent full-time care and is suffering from right frontal lobe dementia, aged 67
After the wedding, the guests would return to the Palazetto Pisani in a regatta of gondolas, disembarking at the water entrance.
Champagne and a candlelit dinner would be served in the marble hall which runs the entire length of the palazzo.
The stage was set and for the Australians already flying in to Venice, it was to be the closest thing to a royal extravaganza they could experience.
The Potters had even flown in their own society priest, the jet setting Father Vincent Kiss, who unbeknown to anyone at the time had a predilection for stealing church funds and fondling boys.
And then the bridegroom dropped his bombshell and did a runner with his best man to Paris, causing a media frenzy.
But long before it fell into the most deliciously scurrilous feast for the world media - making news across Europe, in the UK, the US and Australia - Primrose's bizarre wedding plan had been the subject of intense gossip and speculation.
Primrose Dunlop had a fabulous life among the rich and celebrated but was never pretentious and even after becoming the subject of global gossip about her wedding fisco took it in her stride
It began with a friendship forged between Montesini and Lady Potter - who he nicknamed 'The Empress' in deference to her noble manner and exalted status in Australian society.
Montesini later said he and Lady Potter 'recognised in each other the quest for excellence in ... living' which 'replicated that civilised world' he had grown up in Alexandria, Egypt.
Montesini and Straub also became drinking buddies with Lady Potter's daughter, and at one cocktail session, Primrose - nicknamed in her family Pitty Pat - was bemoaning the expense of getting to parties in London.
Straub suggested Lorenzo marry Pitty Pat. He said this would give her access to cheap Qantas tickets which at the time were not available to same sex partners.
The idea took hold, the news was leaked, the Potters announced the engagement and the couple posed for a formal photograph.
It was shot in the overstuffed living room of the ornately decorated twin rose pink terraces Montesini shared with Straub in the then shabby Sydney wharfside suburb of Woolloomooloo .
Lady Potter and Primrose's daughter Zofia Krasicki (above) remain close after the death of Zofuia's father Count Jerzy Krasicki v Siecin and the confinement of her mother
Dressed in a tuxedo pinned with his Vietnam medal, Montesini stands behind an elegant Primmie who sits on an elaborately carved chair beneath a chandelier in front of a massive gilt mirror beside a Chinoiserie screen.
The couple are holding hands.
Over the ensuing months, as Lady Potter organised her daughter's extravagant wedding, tongues wagged at Sydney parties about Montesini's claim to royal titles and his
