Behind The Spectacle Of A Royal Wedding | Invitation To A Wedding | Real Royalty

[Music] there is nothing quite like a royal wedding and on the 19th of may the world will witness a royal wedding unlike any we've seen before it was very romantic he got on one knee prince harry has announced his wedding engagement to megan toronto canada is waking up to this news the two are set to wed in spring of 2018. wait spring of 2018 that's coming up [Music] like all royal weddings we can expect an eye-catching spectacle of pageantry and here's a wonderful fairy tale site weddings are moments through which a nation defines itself we were there front row nearly front row seats in this film trevor and i discover exactly what it takes to put on the perfect royal wedding by inviting you to share the behind the scenes secrets from those in the know both past and present from the dress designers we had to be very careful not to let any scraps fall on the floor because we had a lot of journalists going through the rubbish to see what color the dress was like to the cake makers we just finished the cake and i remember harry kane bounding in and then he pretended to box with the top decoration and we were like oh no and from the bridesmaids i do remember diana getting ready and she has her tiara on and she's still in her jeans to the lucky guests this arrived after the wedding with a piece of wedding cake inside which sadly is no longer there because i ate it as the couple themselves count down to their big day we'll be cordially inviting you to celebrate with us the forthcoming wedding of his royal highness prince harry and meghan markle [Music] with the royal wedding only weeks away the eyes of the world turn to the small town of windsor as it prepares for the biggest event of the year i still have memories of the 600 000 people who lined the streets in 1981 for the wedding of prince charles and lady diana and there were almost twice as many when the duke and duchess of cambridge got married seven years ago so for this royal raven the crowds in windsor are likely to exceed all records [Music] an impending wedding may be exciting for the country of course and for the couple but for those in the royal household it means a to-do list like no other it's not just the dress food and flowers that anyone has to think about when getting married a royal wedding to-do list includes police to be arranged military bands to be chosen and horses to be trained but as with any wedding the first thing on the to-do list is to secure the venue [Music] harry and megan will be married in george's chapel at windsor castle a place of special significance for the royal family prince harry himself was baptized here and this is where prince charles and camilla received their marriage blessings in 2005. are there absolutely regimented rules about where members of the royal family will sit where the queen will sit well we're standing the nave at the moment and the choir is uh uh behind me on the 19th of may both parts of the chapel will be full of congregation and the the wedding itself will happen at the high altar at the far end of the chapel plans are not yet finalized for exactly which seat but the queen will be sitting in this chapel to watch her grandson get married but this would be no small family event for many years royal weddings took place in private behind closed doors now they shared not just with the country but with the world although prince harry is a global figure he's now only sixth in line to the british throne so he has a little more freedom in his choices for his wedding day than his older brother william prince william could not have chosen this intimate family venue when he got married because of course he had to do everything on the scale of a future king [Music] royal journalist duncan larkin was a guest at this wedding in 2011 when prince william married catherine middleton so this is the order of service from william and kate's wedding it's quite a collective item every guest at the royal wedding had one of these on their seat when i look back now um these can sell on ebay for 1500 pounds plus thinking i should just gone round with a trolley nick if you see at 10 45 fan fairy sounded and that's when the queen arrives the queen is greeted by the dean of westminster so the queen had to sit there 15 minutes that's probably the longest time she's ever waited for anyone in her life it probably really is there was a genuine sense as there will be on harry's wedding day that everyone in that room was witnessing a piece of history a smile from prince william as he sees his bride for the first time on their wedding day unlike harry the guest list for the second in line to the throne had to include heads of state and politicians but there are also celebrities from elton john and david furnish to the beckhams and alexandra shulman who was then editor of british vogue magazine so this is a beautiful little clotted cream-colored tin which arrived after the wedding with a piece of wedding cake inside which sadly is no longer there because i ate it and um it says william and catherine 29th of april 2011. receiving an invitation to royal wedding is utterly thrilling and in my case it was a surprise and you immediately start thinking well what am i going to wear in fact sort of starts to supersede what the bride is going to wear that's the great thing about weddings they're the perfect excuse to treat ourselves to a new suit buy a lovely hat and celebrate the happy couple in royal windsor trevor and i have an invitation to an exclusive dress rehearsal for the royal wedding excitement is mounting as the main event shows hints of a departure from what's gone before for megan and harry we're already seeing them marry tradition and innovation in their wedding for example they announced that they are going to invite school children which i think is a powerful gesture to say you know we are not just an exclusive family enjoying ourselves at the top of society you know these are things i think ordinary people will relate to as the royal procession approaches the altar here comes the bride on her father's arm waiting for her his royal highness prince harry with his brother prince william the best man [Music] dearly beloved we are gathered here in the sight of god with the decision to place school children at the heart of this royal wedding one local school is playing out how they think the ceremony might go i harry take thee megan take thee megan to my wedded wife to my wedded wife i'm playing queen elizabeth i'm prince philip and i think it was like really i felt like really important and really royal how do you think megan's going to be feeling on the day quite nervous because she might get her words and the wrong way around and you think she would get words the wrong way around what she might and she might accidentally trip over on a dress talking of which the second thing on the royal wedding to do list is the dress ever since harry and megan's engagement was announced the speculation amongst fashion journalists about who gets to design the dress has been feverish but the one thing we know for sure is that by tradition the dress remains under official wraps until the very moment we get to see the bride [Music] here is the picture that everyone will be watching closely a royal highness lebron [Applause] the tradition of the white wedding dress is really very recent and it comes from queen victoria previous to her brides would wear any color when victoria got married she was in pure white which signaled to the world that she was this innocent girl and so different to the debauched monarchs who'd gone before and there still is this convention across the board even the most fashion forward the most celebrity of brides everyone still wears white i think for designers it's a very um important balancing act it's not a moment when they can kind of spread their design wings it's more a moment where they can bring their own kind of aesthetic their own trademarks and kind of hone it down into this dress that's going to be one of the most famous things that they'll ever do the most famous wedding dress of all time was the one made for harry's mother lady diana spencer that's the picture of princess diner leaving one of the fittings it was created by elizabeth emanuel and her then husband david in 1981. well we recently graduated from the royal college of art and we just set up the business so i think we've been in business about a year not even that so that's my favorite picture it's yet to have its flounce put on around the neck and i don't even think it's got its lace on yet the lace was embellished with more than ten thousand pearls and sequins sewn on by elizabeth and the team we were all about drama something that was going to be different that was going to create a whole new look for brides something romantic and wild and we knew it was going to be part of history and we wanted it to reflect that history and also tana's youth and beauty images of diana in the emmanuel's designs are world famous but lesser known are the treasured secrets of the workmanship so here are the trunks and these contain lots of royal wedding bits and pieces including the royal wedding pattern this pattern was laid on the fabric and the fabric was cut out and this was a long process because lady diane at the time lost so much weight so we had to keep altering the 12. that's very very precious so you can actually see bits of the real fabric here i kept every scrap and we had to be very careful not to let any scraps fall on the floor because we didn't want them to end up in the rubbish because we had a lot of journalists going through the rubbish to see what color the dress was like and i've kept them pretty much as they were on the cutting table no matter how small every thread was important as far as i was concerned it was so long ago but there are certain things you know that do really really take you back as diana arrived in the carriage the world's eyes were on the ivory silk taffeta dress with its record-breaking 25 foot long train we did know it would crease a bit but when i saw her arrive at some pools and we saw the creases i actually felt faint i was horrified really because it was quite a lot of creasing there i mean we'd done a dress rehearsal but that was with calico so it was a lot more than we thought but in retrospect you know then looking at the footage afterwards i think that's my favorite bit as she comes out the coach because she's a bit like a a caterpillar you know um and turning into a butterfly so she's emerging from the chrysalis and and it just goes on and on and on and on and as she's going up the steps the end of her train is still in the carriage and then the wind catches her veil and the most dramatic pictures ever are from that bit when she's going up the steps towards the pool so i love that now we wanted to make her the ultimate fairy tale princess really of course many of the details of prince harry and meghan markle's wedding remain a mystery and the most closely guarded secret what the bride will be wearing [Music] do you think this looks anything like the dress that meghan markle would wear the wedding well not quite i'm putting love hearts on to make it very royal why do you think loveheart's particularly royal because it makes makes everybody think [Music] edward's first school in windsor preparations are gathering pace for the forthcoming wedding celebrations i've been making meghan markle's dress and i think it would be beautiful like this but at first i had an idea of doing something straight what sort of dress do you think she'll wear on her wedding day probably just a plain white dress no surprise there then but the big question about the dress is who will get to design it of all the wedding dresses of the past the identity of the designer for catherine middleton's dress was the most closely guarded secret even those making it were kept in the dark from the factory in nottinghamshire providing the lace all the way to the embroiderers stitching the design at the royal school of needlework in hampton court palace some reps came down not saying what the commission was and we were asked to quote for a italian costume drama with black lace a very tight schedule they asked what's the chances of being able to work longer hours and having a lot of staff in and i said well yes maybe if you're the queen yes you might be able to um not knowing at the time that actually it was for the royal wedding dress the team only found out what they were going to be making when they were asked to sign a confidentiality contract they had to work hidden away behind closed doors and curtains drawn not able to tell even their nearest and dearest it was hard keeping it a secret but my fiance had no idea my parents had no idea so living at home with two brothers and a sister quite difficult when you're suddenly not at home very much the embroiderers were busy creating a design fit for a future queen it was covered in symbolic flowers just like princess elizabeth's dress in 1947 while elizabeth's flowers of spring promised rebirth after the hardships of war kate's dress included flowers from all corners of the united kingdom from shamrocks to roses we had to cut out hundreds and hundreds of tiny pieces of the motif from different types of lace and apply them to a net backing and then stitch on with tiny stitches which were completely invisible we had a template to follow so we knew exactly where each piece was to the millimeter that's quite hard on the eyes as well yeah because of the net and being white white on white is quite hard we were washing our hands every 30 minutes just to make sure that the threads were pristine that the work itself was pristine but the team still didn't know who the designer was her identity sarah burton of alexander mcqueen wasn't revealed to the public until the morning of the wedding itself when she was caught on camera arriving at the bride's hotel one hadn't thought of that sort of the the brand alexander mcqueen as as dressing royals at all at the time it was it was a brave decision his clothes could be quite frightening in some ways very kind of out there quite macabre and i think what she was able to see was the detail the interest in symbolism and the theatricality of it could be shaped to be relevant for for a royal wedding when catherine stepped out of the car and i saw the dress for the first time i cried a lot of tears a lot of happy tears i turned to my fiance and said um so you know i've not been seeing very much of you recently i've been a bit busy um that's the reason why that dress that catherine is wearing is what i've been working on and he was slightly bemused i think because uh obviously be wondering what else i might be keeping secret for that amount of time um but he was very proud when i saw her arrive and start to walk up the aisle and i just saw how beautiful the dress in terms of the the silhouette of it and the grace of it and the the elegance of it i just thought yay the girl's done good of course once the bride has chosen her dress it's only just the beginning what comes next is what to go with it the jewelry the shoes the hair and the makeup and of course the flowers [Music] and it's not just a matter of personal taste the flowers are also likely to be rich in symbolism and history as royal florist paul thomas explains this is myrtle which is a real tradition in royal bouquets going right back to queen victoria's daughter so what sort of style and taste might we expect for an american bride do you think we are almost certainly going to see some peonies it's that full flower and and that that full color of roses like for example these said beautiful oh they are so romantic paul is spot on it's since been announced that harry and meghan have chosen peonies and white roses as well as foliage from local royal parks and so how can you ever miss the lilium valley which is the flower for may the most amazing perfume i think in the world it's exquisite isn't it i cannot imagine that they will not be used and i remember actually ahead of the last big royal wedding these are all planted around the bases of the trees they had lining the aisle we were allowed in the night before to have a look around the abbey and the thing that struck me most when you went through the door was just the perfume oh the mustard it's been wonderful it was incredible oh how lovely longman's florists in london made their first royal bouquet for princess elizabeth in 1947. they went on to make bouquets for everyone from princess margaret to sarah ferguson and lady diana in 1981. her bouquet orchids and pale gardenias dark myrtle and golden mountbatten roses [Music] head of the family firm at the time was david longman whose florist daughter lottie is recreating diana's bouquet to show us just what's involved did you have a meeting with lady diana to discuss yes i went we did exactly the same procedure as for the queen i went to see her i also went to see the dress designer and the emmanuel's yes they wanted it to be large and so did she and then we made a sample of okay and she said i want it bigger than that and what did you say to that your wishes my command well lady diana showed me how she wanted to be like that so i took a tape measure and said it's going to be 42 inches like that is that all right she said that's fine this for the time afterwards changed the whole fashion did you have to instruct diana about how to carry the bouquet very much so one always instructs a bride how to hold the bouquet because if you're not careful a bride will hold it up like a chest protector i don't know why legends have gone it has to be held down so it enhances the dress [Music] so i'm just going to put the traditional piece of myrtle into the bouquet lottie there's a lot of work that goes into the creation of a bouquet like this well a huge amount of work every single flower is individually wired and then taped so that the moisture is held into into the flower so they survive even the lily of the valley has a silver wire that runs down and the the size of this bouquet this is the 42 inches absolutely 42 inches i hope so we made two bks the first one had to be delivered which i delivered at um eight o'clock to buckingham palace and we had a police escort motorcyclist who took us all through the city to buckingham palace and then we came back with that time they'd finished the second bouquet back we went again what's the point of having two bouquets well if we go back to the queen's wedding in 1947 when you look at the state photographs of all the bridesmaids and the royal guests and there's the queen without a bouquet it got lost so in the middle of the honeymoon they had to get dressed up again in their wedding clothes and my father had to provide another bouquet for those photographers so now it's a tradition so that doesn't happen again so the dress is sorted the flowers are underway and the clock is ticking next on the to-do list is the food the centerpiece of which of course is the cake i wasn't sure if i could actually do it because i'd never done anything this size before and it's for our future king so i had to then come up with the goods if you like because i certainly didn't want to end up in the tower what kind of orange juice megan might like some of those cakes do you think yeah i think with a street party planned to celebrate the royal wedding the school children in windsor have moved on to the next thing on their own to-do list cakes if you were coming up with your dream ingredients for their wedding cake what would you put in i would probably put in chocolate and cream and some sprinkles on top of the cream i hear that megan is going to have um is it lemon and elderflower have you heard yeah first some baking news they're not your average couple and it seems harry and meghan have bucked tradition we've been to hackney to find out more small understated and a hackney favorite the violet bakery is everything windsor is not but according to the locals that's exactly what makes it the perfect choice for your wedding cake so we might know this is the bakery but the cake of course is being made in complete secrecy the fact that baker claire patak is like megan a californian gives us a hint we'll be seeing a bit of american taste on a very british occasion and the lemon and elderflower is certainly a far cry from the traditional fruitcakes of the past british biscuit makers mcvities have been responsible for royal show-stoppers ever since the reign of queen victoria and in 1947 they made the nine-foot high 500 pound wedding cake for princess elizabeth but over half a century later their head cake chef paul courtney was asked to make something with a more personal touch for prince william's wedding so paul tell me about this recipe for this special cake we were given the recipe by the royal household and we went there thinking we're probably going to be making a fruit cake as you do for weddings and they said no we'd love you to make a chocolate biscuit cake which fantastically for us was made with rich tea biscuits and it was one of the queen's favorites when she was a girl and prince william used to be packed off to school with it they gave us a recipe which is a heck of a privilege so i took it away guarded it with my life i can't tell you too much because it's a secret so these biscuits had a part in a big royal wedding absolutely a big part can we nick one now do they the cake was designed and made under cover at macvittie's research and development facility just outside london [Music] so paul what level of secrecy are we talking about when it came to this cake well it was off the scale um it was all very much dagger basically we just we just blacked out the windows we had secure door locks everywhere only certain people had access we had security cameras cameras in there absolutely well you needed to know what was happening when you weren't there [Music] paul's partner in clandestine cake making was royal chocolatier barry calenzo barry tell me what your role was in this amazing partnership for making the cake well my role really was to to bring the chocolate dream to life you know all we knew was that it was going to be this recipe from the palace and everything else really was up for grabs barry produced various designs and in the end the royal couple decided on one featuring white chocolate dahlias you're going to show me how you begin to put one of these together we're going to try so the first thing we need to do is pop a bit of chocolate on there so you did it how did you end up doing dailies what was the significance of it because dahlias stand for longevity and love so assuming this they are going to stay in love for a long time okay that's fine so now what we need to do is to make our ball right so we need to stick these two together like that very good okay you're natural i don't think so all right so now we've got three layers of petals six petals on each layer we'll start with the little ones this is so delicate these are six so they're stuck to the paper so what you need to do is peel them off yeah dunk them in dunk them dip them and then put it underneath the ball and spray it okay so the clock ticking no spray that's it perfect the patience that you need did you just spend hours doing these it took a long time first one i did from start to finish took me four hours i can do them now in about 20 minutes having kept the cake secret for three months the biggest challenge for barry and paul was still to come how do you make sure that on the day it can't go wrong and if you make one cake then clearly you're at risk so we actually made two full cakes like this one here and we knew we had to transport it to buckingham palace so we organized two vehicles that would go drive separately because what happens if one's in an accident we were carrying precious cargo i took one of the vans and drove the route three times literally noting every pothole every corner everything to make sure that we knew that at mile three there was a deep bottle and on the left hand side of the near carriage and don't run over it the relief when you got it there safely must have been enormous yeah and then you've got to assemble it yes no absolutely so we have the kazi as it is here um and then we had to apply all the decorations barry and paul were at buckingham palace for two days putting the chocolate panels and flowers on the cake we just finished the cake on the day we'd literally just put the top on and of course at that point it's just like oh collective sigh of relief barry and i hugged i think there was a tear in my eye we've done it it looks fantastic and i remember harry came in harry came bounding in and harry was how you'd expect him to be just a fun joker and he walked up to it very enthusiastic oh wow fantastic is this chocolate and he and he picked a piece of chocolate up and ate it and then he pretended to box with the top decoration and we were like oh no but again it was just yeah it was just it was fun but slightly heart-stopping moments royal wedding cakes have always been closely guarded from princess elizabeth's whose bakers slept overnight in the factory to protect it to princess diana's made and secured on a naval base in chatham but of all the royal wedding cakes the one made for prince charles's marriage to camilla parker bowles was the hardest to keep safe from prying eyes it was created in a tiny cake shop in lincolnshire well because we have a shop and a shop by nature has windows we're also in a village so trying to keep secrets in a village is virtually impossible so i said to my business partner i think we need to find somewhere that is safe and secure where people aren't going to see what we're doing and so the nearest place we could think of was just behind our little shop unit is our local woodhall methodist church so this is where we will hold up for the three days that it took us to decorate the cake my business partner and i were in here in front of the altar we had things drying all along these radiators on the back all the way around the room and we could hear all this chit chat chit chat the other side of the partition luckily we had the vertical blinds closed but we could hear all this going on next door and i said if only they knew what was actually being made in this section of the church itself and what was being made was no small feat dawn's cake weighed 17 stone and had to feed 800 people not only was i asked to do this huge wedding cake but i was also asked to supply two and a half thousand slices for the commemorative tins for the same day so a huge huge task even the food at a royal wedding is steeped in tradition from dishes named after the bride and groom like prince philip's philly de sole montbaton on his wedding menu to cakes decorated with royal crests like these of the prince of wales where you have the plaques some of them are just iced and over iced again and then on to the flowers we did roses for england and we did daffodils and leeks for whales and we've got thistles for scotland and then these corners were all covered over as well just to soften it slightly most of it was done literally on a wing and a prayer we were just hoping that it would all work we had no time for error no nothing could go wrong otherwise yeah we'd be letting down the future king of england oh very frightening so as the day itself approaches there are always a few minor details to be finalized the police and the military to be arranged the horses to be prepared and of course the seating plan to be navigated the biggest headache of a wedding is the guest list when a normal person gets married you're worried about can we put auntie pam near uncle roger because they got divorced 20 years ago imagine that on steroids that's basically a royal wedding [Music] ever since queen victoria royal weddings have gone from being private occasions behind closed doors to national events celebrated with the people an estimated one million people were lining the processional route many of them got here days ago and this is what they came for [Applause] but managing the crowds is a huge task for those in the royal household coordinating the day it's incredibly collaborative it involves you know transport for london in this case you know the authorities in windsor thames valley police you've got royal parks you've got military you've got a number of different um broadcasters it's an enormous number and sometimes you have to take some tough calls so a few days before william's wedding i stood just behind the queen victoria memorial this is a few days out where they were building the final bit of the camera stand and i realized they were building it to the wrong dimensions and the crowd were going to see nothing all those thousands of people in the crowd who were going to be there for hours to see the balcony moment we're just going to see how their view by by a whole big stand and i remember saying to a very senior technician uh from one of the broadcasters i said we've got to do this again we've got to take it down he looked at me as if i was completely mad and i said we do this is too big bottom line is that we've got to get the right balance for the crowd one way of sharing the occasion with the people is a procession through the streets in windsor the household cavalry and armed forces will flank the carriage providing both security and pageantry retired coachman alfie oates worked for the royal muse for 55 years and took part in seven royal weddings here we come for the pickup we'll steady make sure everyone over the bride's feet at prince andrew's wedding nice move off alfie was riding closest to the carriage leading both his horse and the one next to him there's me this is the 1902 state road landor built for king about the seventh drawn by four grey horses of course it's going fast the state landau took the newly weds from westminster abbey to the palace and then alfie had to attach the horses to a different carriage for the next job they're going on honeymoon now to the station it's a very long day for the horses really we probably was started past four or five o'clock in the cavalry straightening ourselves up they're all going very nicely what you've been aiming for for months training them it's always nice to get off the horse at the end and give them a pattern they were well done like all royal brides before her when meghan markle leaves in george's chapel on the 19th of may she'll be joining the most famous family in the world just an amazing surprise it was so sweet and and natural and very romantic he got on one knee when meghan markle marries into the royal family her life is going to change she's a public individual and this has always been very hard for royal bride so queen elizabeth the queen mother when she was being courted by the future george vi she was very unsure and in fact she turned him down quite a few times because of her concern about living in the royal goldfish board and the governess of princess elizabeth said royals are only private in the womb and that was in the 50s and the scrutiny on royal brides has only intensified a hundred fold capturing megan's every move would be royal photographer chris jackson he photographed the couple's engagement and will be taking pictures on their wedding day just as he did for prince william's wedding in 2011. there was weeks of sort of preparation technical preparation mental preparation i came down here quite a few times made sure i had the right equipment making sure everything was charged checking it checking it again chris was one of hundreds of photographers taking pictures that day they were shooting in panoramic 3d and at all key positions along the route so my sport on the day of the wedding was down on the memorial down here right outside the front steps of westminster abbey i was down there very early i think about six o'clock it was a beautiful spring morning i just met the amazing atmosphere when i got down there early and you know people were waking up from tents and there was there was a lot of excitement in the air this particular spot uh was quite important to capture those first moments of the duke and duchess emerging onto the steps as a married couple and i'd i'll never forget the kind of the roar of the crowd chorus of camera shutters going off you've got seconds to capture a moment in history a moment that's going to live on and i was very lucky that the duke connections both look straight towards me and actually when i saw the picture on the back of the camera there was a huge kind of wave of relief that went through me that i hadn't totally buggered it up basically within minutes of the first photograph of the married couple being taken it had been shared worldwide twitter users were posting 237 tweets every second about the royal wedding this time with prince harry marrying a hollywood actress wedding fever is set to go sky high around the world megan comes from a different country and she's had a totally different career to any of the contemporary walls and on top of that she has this black heritage so i think that's more normal and i think more people relate to it everyone is listening and i'm in the same room as the royal couple right now i think it's brilliant and hilarious how people are projecting themselves onto this wedding you know and i mean there's so many memes on social media kind of showing nigerian families dancing down the aisle and jamaicans having a jerk barbecue at windsor i mean it's hilarious because she's not jamaican and she's not nigerian but i think a lot of people with proud black identities are just projecting themselves onto this because this is the first chance they've had to relate to someone personally that is having a royal wedding but who will get a golden ticket to attend on the big day it's already been revealed there'd be no politicians or diplomats on the guest list just friends family and people from the charities the couple support and admire could we have the ring please but we've yet to find out who'll be the page boys and bridesmaids although these roles have already been taken in the windsor schools role play of the royal wedding with this ring ivy wed what was it like being a royal bridesmaid what did it make you think a bit gross it was a bit gross this huge honour of being a royal bridesmaid was shared by india hicks bridesmaid to prince charles and lady diana in 1981. the two senior bridesmaids lady sarah and miss hicks descended the steps to be ready for the bride and the dress tell me first of all how you came to be bridesmaid well i have a very wonderful loyal extraordinary godfather who happens to be the prince of wales and when the invitation came through at first i thought this is fantastic and then i thought oh my god i've got to wear a dress and of course a 1980s wedding lordy that is a moment in fashion that i think many of us would like to remove yes completely and what was the atmosphere like when you were getting ready amazing just like any wedding lots of chaos lots of excitement and i do remember a knock at the door and princess margaret so sweetly coming in for me to borrow her toothbrush that was quite a moment deciding whether to use the queen's sister's toothbrush or not and i do also remember diana getting ready and she has her tiara on and she's still in her jeans so that's kind of a remarkable sight and then she gets into the dress and she's standing in the middle of the room and at that moment it just it felt wonderful it really did um and it felt like a family affair and here's really a wonderful fairy tale site so many millions watching all over the world what memories do you have of the carriage right sitting with prince edward who i had grown up with so so new and both of us being very concerned about one of the bridesmaids there with us and who i didn't know and of course she was very small and allergic to horses and no one had anticipated this how could we uh and of course she her eyes were streaming streaming her nose was streaming she kept wiping her nose on her dress on this silk dress and edwin and i were trying to cope with this very very very miserable child inside the carriage that's quite a memory yes i'll never look at those dresses in quite the same way no snot snot all over the silk royal bridesmaids have always had not only the best seats for the service in the procession but also a coveted invitation to the reception oh there we are arriving at buckingham palace i don't remember seeing this annabelle cope was one of princess margaret's bridesmaids i should think we were probably quite glad that it was all over that's what i remember the people surging towards the gates it was just the most amazing sight in the world it was like lots of octopuses if you like waving arms it was just incredible and the noise of people shouting there i am leaning in front of the queen struck by just the numbers of people brings back all those feelings being on that balcony again um magical [Music] from the palace balcony elizabeth and her husband waved to the cheering crowd [Applause] throughout history royal weddings have been the biggest advertisement for the royal family [Music] weddings are moments through which a nation defines itself so i think this marriage symbolically does have a role to play in our perceptions of what britishness is and who gets to be included this is the royal wedding which i think edges the british monarchy into the 21st century from an american of mixed race now at the heart of the royal family to the inclusion on the guest list of school children rather than politicians and the choice of organic cakes and sustainable floristry this is a royal wedding for a modern age but let's leave the final word to the people who really matter the bride and groom and their friends and family if you had any advice to megan and harry for their big day what would you say i would say don't be worried because you'll have each other to love and to hold to smile a lot and be really happy i'd say good behavior um stay calm don't be nervous i would probably say don't worry it's okay because it will all be all right it's harry and megan's big day but is also the people's wedding to which we are all invited

Channel: Real Royalty

Views: 180,210

Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history

Id: KpJaJsrbanc

Length: 45min 38sec (2738 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 12 2021