An official souvenir programme is to go on sale on the day of the royal wedding.

The booklet, which will contain a personal message of thanks from Prince William and Kate Middleton, will be handed out along the processional route by a team of military cadets and Explorer Scouts.

It will cost £2 and feature the full order of service and a previously unseen photograph of the couple by Mario Testino.

Only 150,000 copies will be up for grabs due to the logistics of distributing it.

But it will also be available to download for free 24 hours before the wedding from www.officialroyalwedding2011.org.

The white A5 guide, created in the classic style of an official royal wedding programme, features Prince William’s coat of arms on the front with, in red ink, the words “The Royal Wedding” above and “Official Pro-gramme” below.

Ms Middleton’s new coat of arms will be on the back.

The ceremonial, the marriage service and the procession are “published by Gracious Permission of Her Majesty The Queen”.

Proceeds from the sale of the booklet will go to the Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry.

Official programmes are traditionally produced to mark royal weddings, including those of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 and the Duke of York and Sarah Ferguson in 1986.

Some 60 teenage Explorer Scouts and 80 cadets from the Greater London Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Association representing the Combined Cadet Force, Sea Cadet Corps, Army Cadet Force, and the Air Training Corps have been tasked with selling the programme along the wedding route and in the surrounding area on April 29.

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