Away from the cameras, it could have passed for a normal family wedding. The brother of the groom kept up a string of chatter in a valiant attempt to calm his big brother’s nerves. Aging relatives lined up to use the bathroom. (The queue was 30 minutes long.) Colourfully dressed guests hugged each other in the aisle, reminiscing that they hadn’t seen each other since the last big gathering – was it a state funeral? Or a prince’s christening?
A royal wedding, seen from inside Westminster Abbey, is a lot like any other wedding, except that the groom says “I do” on the same spot where he will one day become king. Fortunately, Prince William was spared the embarrassment of having to look at the coronation chair, the ancient and beat-up seat on which he may one day sit and which is currently at Windsor Castle being repaired.
All the other chairs in the Abbey are remarkably, even defiantly, humble. Most regular brides would reject as too plain the straight-backed chairs that were adorned with simple slips of paper reading Queen of Spain and Grand Duke of Luxembourg. There was no little slip for the ambassador from Syria or the Crown Prince of Bahrain, after it was decided that violently repressing one’s own people was incompatible with the spirit of romance and revelry. I was sorely tempted to pocket one of the seating cards as I made my way back to the bit of Poet’s Corner where a couple of dozen British journalists, one New Zealander, one Australian and I had been given seats.
Before the wedding party arrived, the atmosphere inside Westminster Abbey was as jolly as a garden party – or at least as jolly as a party can be where no alcohol is served. There was little gawking, because so many were gawk-worthy. Someone accidentally stepped on the Grave of the Unknown Warrior – the one grave in the church that is sacrosanct and must never be trod upon – to the sound of gasps from the few people who noticed.
Soccer celebrity David Beckham arrived with his pregnant wife, Victoria, and facial stubble so precisely calibrated that it may have required its own entourage of grooming technicians. Music star Elton John came with his partner, David Furnish, but not baby Zachary, and appeared to be wearing a hat of human hair, which turned out on second inspection to be his own hair.
Mr. Furnish was not the only Canadian on hand: Prime Minister Stephen Harper had to decline his invitation in favour of running the last few kilometres of campaign trail, but Governor-General David Johnston, his wife, Sharon, and James Wright, the Canadian High Commissioner to the UK, all represented their country.
