Prince William and Catherine Middleton recently exchanged vows in the world's most celebrated wedding, and now their love story is told in the Hallmark Channel Original Movie WILLIAM & CATHERINE: A ROYAL ROMANCE. This film might be the most authentic look into their romance because the cast, crew and location have so many unique and surprising connections to the royal family.

Newcomers Dan Amboyer and Alice St. Clair play the couple from their first meeting at university through their fairy-tale engagement. Playing such a well known figure can be tricky, but Amboyer wanted to capture William without imitating him. "The challenge was to know who these people are and really respect them, but also to find a way to not mimic them," he said.

While Detroit, Amboyer's birthplace, is a far cry from Buckingham Palace, he didn't have to undergo any special etiquette training to prepare for his role as a prince. "The interesting thing about him is I don't think he really plays that status in his real life," he said. "He wants to blend in with everyone and he wants to not play that card."

British actress St. Clair felt that she had an advantage over her co-stars because Kate is less well known than the rest of the royal family. "In a way, having Kate be mysterious or unknown was almost easier," she said. I did a lot of backdoor research into where she was raised and where she went to school. Other than that, a lot of it came from my experience of growing up and being twentysomething and falling in love."

St. Clair has a special relationship with the royal family -- her father works on Queen Elizabeth's security detail. However, he didn't offer any extra help, as he takes his position very seriously. "He's a very discreet man…we don't really talk about his job because it's obviously top secret," she said. "I was trying to nudge info, but sadly he's very quiet."

But the chemistry between the Amboyer and St. Clair is what make the royal couple believable. "We actually found our Catherine and William here in New York," recounts writer-director-producer Linda Yellen. "Lynn Kressel, the casting director, did this massive search, and it turned out these two [Amboyer and St. Clair] had this unusual, incredible chemistry between them. When you find that between two actors, your mission is over because that's the hardest thing to find. Even if they're good actors and they look good, if they don't have that chemistry, it doesn't work. It's like Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp [in THE TOURIST]. They were criticized because they didn't have that chemistry."

Prince William (Dan Amboyer) begins his courtship with Catherine Middleton (Alice St. Clair)

as he takes her out for a game of pool on their first official date.

Photo Credit: Gabriel Hennessey for Crown Media Networks, Inc.

Prince Charles is portrayed by veteran actor Victor Garber, who found that playing Charles changed his opinion of the Prince. "I am not obsessed with them like some people are, but I certainly have enormous respect, and it was kind of a great thing to be able to step in there," Garber said.

Garber feels that the attention surrounding the wedding has boosted the popularity of the royal family. "I think it has done an enormous service to the royal family, and I think that this film…it attempts to kind of humanize them," he said. "Because enough time has passed since the tragedy of Diana's death, that they're sort of being seen in a different way. I think that William and Kate have definitely had an enormously positive effect on their reputation."

Prince Charles, played by Victor Garber, who despite being a prince and king-to-be,

is first and foremost a father.

Photo Credit: Gabriel Hennessey for Crown Media Networks, Inc.

Even though the Canadian actor has always been fascinated by the royal family, but has never met them. But there was a close call during production. The real Prince Charles came to meet with Romanian President Traian Basescu at his Cotroceni Palace, where the movie was being filmed in Bucharest. Yellen would have loved nothing more than to have HRH The Prince of Wales in for a visit, and there were jesting suggestions around the set about posting "William & Kate TV movie, this way" on signs around the palace. "The dream shot we would have loved would have been him sitting next to Victor Garber, but alas, the day he was visiting was also the day Victor had to leave, so it wouldn't have happened anyway," Yellen says.

Since much of the shooting was done at the president's palace in Bucharest, the surroundings in the film look authentically regal with multiple connections to royalty. Yellen says that the chance to use such an exquisite location was key to her decision to film so far away in Romania. "It's the president's palace now, but it was the palace of the king of Romania," she points out, as she recalls a sequence in which Queen Elizabeth (Jane Alexander) is in her bedchamber -- a room that had once been designated for the Queen of England in real life. Queen Victoria, that is.

Queen Elizabeth II (Jane Alexander) with her husband, Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh (Mark Penfold),

have both been very influential figures in the lives of their grandsons.

Photo Credit: Gabriel Hennessey for Crown Media Networks, Inc.

Plus, they filmed the movie in the presence of Romanian President Basescu, who was in residence at the palace as production took place. Something "just unheard of," Yellen reports. "It would be like Obama renting out part of the White House for people to make a movie while he was there."

For Yellen, the material was very familiar because she executive produced the 1982 TV movie THE ROYAL ROMANCE OF CHARLES AND DIANA. The success of that project allowed her access to the British royal family, which helped when she was writing the more intimate family scenes. "When you know certain things about people, certain givens, then you can sort of figure out how they might actually be," Yellen said. "You know their speech patterns; you get a sense of how they might have interacted."

She counts making the 1982 film (also cast by Kressle) and getting to meet the late Princess Diana several times as a result of it, as one of her happiest experiences.

Princess Diana. Photo provided by: Crown Media Holding, Inc.

Last November, Yellen looked up at her television one day when she was doing something else and saw a news photo of the famous sapphire-and-diamond ring once presented by Prince Charles to Diana -- and now given by Prince William to Kate Middleton to seal their betrothal. She caught her breath and quickly turned up the sound.

Prince William (Dan Amboyer) proposes to his girlfriend of nine years, Catherine Middleton, (Alice St. Clair)

with the engagement ring (shown to the right) that his mother Diana wore in 1981.

Photo Credit: Gabriel Hennessey for Crown Media Networks, Inc.

"We had to make a copy of that ring for the movie. In 1982, we couldn't just buy a copy on the internet like you can today. I knew that ring so well. And when I saw it, there came to me this whole history," she recalls. "I thought of what steps must have intervened in-between for him to give this ring to this girl. I thought of what it meant in terms of the influence of Princess Diana on William, which has been discussed and speculated on so much since her death. She was such a hands-on mother. So I just found that another aspect of the story that came to me -- the psychological aspect."

That ring, and what it meant to William, allowed Yellen to pull from her experiences with Diana. Yellen wrote:

WILLIAM & CATHERINE: A ROYAL ROMANCE premieres Saturday, August 27, 2011 at 9pm ET/PT.