Royal retreat gets ready to party
WINDSOR, England — Few towns are as quintessentially English as Windsor, the bucolic riverside locale where Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle will get married on Saturday.
And few towns are as pleasing when a warm spring sun bakes off the morning mist. Even the plump white swans on the Thames River seem relieved that the winter is over.
Most of the swans belong to Queen Elizabeth II and must be counted each year by Her Majesty’s Swan Marker, a ritual that reflects the dominant role the Windsors play in the town whose name the royal family adopted as a surname a century ago.
All roads seem to lead to Windsor Castle, a magnificent fortress perched high on a hill topped by the royal standard when the queen is in residence. It is here — a favored royal playground since William the Conqueror built the first structure in 1070 — that the royal wedding will take place.
Harry, one of the least traditional young royals, has chosen the most traditional of venues.
Fevered preparations are underway: Many roads have been repaved, street signs are being repainted, storefronts are decked out with life-size cutouts of Harry and Markle and shoppers are being lured by souvenirs of all kinds.
Windsor is getting a bit of a makeover, just like the monarchy, which is rebranding itself with attention focused on the new, younger generation of princes as the 92-year-old queen slowly reduces her public duties.
“Everything is now in place, we’re 99.9 percent of the way there,” said town councilor Phillip Bicknell, who expects more than 100,000 people on the royal wedding day if the weather is good. “We believe this is going to be the biggest number of people fitting into Windsor for any event. It’s going to be quite tight, but the atmosphere will be electric.”
There’s already a party feel in Windsor well in advance of the actual party. Tourists from around the world arrive daily by train and walk through the royal shopping arcade to the castle. No one, it seems, can resist the impulse to take a selfie in front of the castle.
The royal wedding itself is a party on a grand scale, with 600 guests invited to the ceremony in St. George’s Chapel, another 2,640 invited to the castle’s grounds, and tens of thousands more expected to throng the town’s narrow streets hoping for a glimpse of the newlyweds.
Security barriers are being put in place and an elaborate police deployment plan has been mapped out. It’s fairly easy to establish a secure perimeter around the castle grounds, and a no-fly, no-drone zone will be enforced to keep the airspace clear.