Rap star Stormzy helps calm my royal wedding nerves says Archbishop
THE Archbishop of Canterbury is taking inspiration from a Stormzy song as he nervously prepares for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding.
The Most Rev Justin Welby, 62, will officiate at the highlyanticipated ceremony on May 19, but even the Church of England’s top cleric is not safe from the nerves of the big day.
He told the BBC: “I’m always nervous at weddings because it is such an important day for the couple, whoever they are.
“I’ve made a couple of cackhanded mistakes over the last couple of weddings I’ve been involved in and I’m thinking this is probably not a good moment to make it a hat-trick.”
The Archbishop has previously admitted to fearing he might drop the ring during the service and when asked by presenter Lorna Bailey how he was preparing himself, he said a line from grime artist Stormzy’s song Blinded By Your Grace was helping him in the run-up to the nuptials.
“There’s a line in that – ‘I stay prayed up and get the job done’ – I think that sort of sums it up,” he said.
The Archbishop, the most senior figure in the Church of England after the Queen, who is the supreme governor, has already had an instrumental role in preparing Megan for the wedding.
In March, he officiated as she was baptised and confirmed into the Church in a secret ceremony at the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace. The Archbishop described it as “beautiful” and “very special”.
Preparations are well under way for the wedding, with renovation work being carried out at Kensington Palace to allow Harry and Meghan to move into Apartment 1A, next to Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge.
Work originally began last November on the 21-room wing of the palace and Harry has taken an eager interest in the development. A source said: “He keeps popping round and asking when it will be ready. “He seems in a real hurry to move in with Meghan.” The couple currently live at Nottingham Cottage, in the palace grounds. Following their engagement, the Queen’s cousin Richard, Duke of Gloucester, 73, whose three children are now grown up, offered to vacate his splendid Apartment 1 at the palace so Harry and Meghan could have it.
The Gloucesters will move into a smaller apartment soon to be vacated by the Queen’s private secretary Sir Christopher Geidt.
A hint Harry and Meghan had set their hearts on the apartment came as a line of fir trees was planted earlier this year to screen its entrance from the public walking up and down Kensington Palace Gardens.