When Kate Middleton walks down the aisle on Friday, I will not be taking note of what she is wearing, how she’s done her hair or how she’s made up her face.

I will not be doing any of these things because I do not want to look like her. I repeat, I DO NOT want to look like Kate Middleton.

So far, I have been strong enough to stick to my guns and resist all pressure to the contrary.

Were I weaker-willed, I would probably have succumbed to that pressure and made every effort to transform myself into a mirror-image of Kate.

Had I given in, I would now be unrecognisable: my hair colour would have changed, my clothing would be different, even my body shape would be nothing like it used to be.

For the past few months we have been subjected to a barrage of advice from all quarters on how to look like the royal bride-to-be.

From the moment Kate Middleton announced her engagement, we’ve been shown how to ‘get the look’ – from the dress to the ring, the hair and the complexion.

Under the headline, ‘How to be a natural beauty like Kate’, one newspaper showed readers how to capture that ‘natural and beautifully-groomed’ look with the minimum of effort. But how do they know it takes a minimum of effort? For all we, the public, know, Kate may get up at 5am and spend four hours perfecting that ‘natural’ look.

‘Dress like a princess’, urged another. I don’t even like the blue dress that Kate wore when she got engaged. It looks great on her, but it’s not my style, yet the ‘be like Kate’ propaganda is such that one day, while at a low ebb, I found myself gazing for longer than is healthy at lookalike frocks in a glossy magazine.

I only snapped out of it when the smoke alarm went off and I had to retrieve yet another piece of toast from the incinerator that masquerades as a toaster. And it doesn’t stop there. We are even being convinced that we need Kate’s physique. ‘For the mere minions who are looking on in awe of Kate Middleton, many are envious of her body’, I was told in an e-mail encouraging me to undergo some sort of body wrap that guarantees a loss of six inches, which stay off for at least a month.

It is important to resist these temptations, yet I worry that on the big day itself, and in the aftermath (going- away dresses, honeymoon make-up, coming home casuals…), the pressure could become too much. If we’re not careful we could all become Kate clones.