Britain at its Best …
Almost two billion people watched the Royal Wedding last week. I think it deserves another mention.
I must admit, I started watching the coverage of the royal wedding on Saturday at 6.30 am – and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I thought that this wedding, when Prince Harry married Meghan Markle, would be different from other royal weddings, but didn’t expect it to be quite so different. As soon as the sun came up over Windsor Castle, and the crowds started gathering, I wished that I had booked a flight to England to be part of this historic event. It showed Britain at its best and is probably going to be the last important royal wedding until Prince George, who is now 4 years old, gets married.
Windsor Castle is one of the official residences of the British Royal Family and always attracts thousands of tourists, but on the day of the wedding 120,000 people lined the streets of the market town. It was a royal wedding with a mixture of pomp and pageantry, which was done in a way that only the British can do, with a modern touch. Many royal fans had slept on cardboard boxes for days to make sure that they got a place next to the railings. Here they would have the best view of the couple when the open horse-drawn carriage drove the newlyweds along the Long Walk – the narrow street leading up to Windsor Castle.
The week before the wedding had started off in such a bad way when Meghan Markle’s father announced that he could not make it to the ceremony, after apparently having a heart attack – probably due to the fact that the paparazzi had followed him around all the time. Her half-sister wrote a terrible book about Meghan and Meghan’s half-brother wrote Prince Harry a letter, pleading with him to call the wedding off. He said: "Meghan is not the right women for you and she will make a joke of you and the Royal Family". To make matters worse Meghan’s nephew, who legally owns a cannabis plantation in California, decided to name one of his plants "Markle Sparkle" after the bride-to-be. All of these relatives had hoped to get an invitation but, needless to say, none of them did. The only relative on Meghan’s side of the family to attend the wedding was her mother, Doria, who looked quite lonely sitting in the pews on her own.
In the end, the beautiful, American actress married her Prince Charming and it was like a fairytale as they exchanged their vows in front of the Queen and 600 chosen guests. She looked stunning as she walked down the aisle asa commoner ,on Prince Charles’s arm, and came out of the chapel as the Duchess of Sussex. When the guests arrived at St. George’s Chapel it was clear that they were a mixture of friends and relatives from the Royal Family, but also from the world of sport and celebrities from Hollywood. The cast of the popular American series "Suits", where Meghan played the role of Rachel Zane, were there, along with the famous talk show host, Oprah Winfrey. To my delight the gorgeous George Clooney was there with his wife, Amal, and David and Victoria Beckham sat next to Elton John.
It was a traditional wedding until the Bishop Michael Curry, from the Episcopal Church in Chicago, gave an address like the Church of England had never seen before. We were all trying to catch a glimpse of the Queen’s face, but I am sure that even she was tapping her toes to the Kingdom Gospel Choir. It was a modern, diverse wedding which was full of love and laughter.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are definitely going to modernise the Royal Family and make them more popular as they dedicate their time to so many charities.