We’ve been talking about marriage and wedding planning here at the Marriage blog this month and I don’t think any wedding planning would be complete without talking about some of the great weddings of the last century. And I do mean the last century, not the current one. When I think of the great weddings of the last century, one of the first weddings to come to mind is that of Charles, Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer. I was just nine years old when they were married in the summer of 1981. I remember my mother waking me up at a little after 3 in the morning to come downstairs because they were going to air the wedding on television.
My grandmother, my mother and I all settled onto the sofa in our living room. There were reporters, there were cameras everywhere and London itself seemed to be decked out in festival. There were hundreds and thousands of people thronging the streets between the Palace and St. Paul’s Cathedral. We saw the chain of coaches as they left the palace carrying the royal family to witness the long-expected nuptials.
Lady Diana Spencer, herself, appeared as a vision in her flowing white gown with its mile long train. She arrived in a glass sealed coach and who did not see Cinderella? Can it really have been twenty-five years ago that the world was invited to witness the ceremony?
The couple were married at St Paul’s Cathedral before an invited congregation of 3,500 and an estimated global TV audience of 750 million.
No matter what your personal thoughts are on the Royal Family, the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer was an experience that colored my childhood. They were a fairy tale brought to life and the fairy tale continued in the love affair the public had with the newly crowned Princess Diana. Her death in 1997 left me mourning as though I’d truly known her. That acquaintance began with her engagement to the Prince, culminated in a wedding and continued through numerous photographs, stories and more.
In ways, I feel like we are diminished still by her loss and yet, when I remember the wedding – not even the knowledge that the fairy tale crashed and burned can diminish the feeling of hope and love the ceremony was imbued with. I think every wedding should leave you feeling that way — an experience that can still take your breath away twenty-five years later.