CelebRAtion SatuRdAy! The Royal Wedding of Prince Harry & Meghan Markle, May 19, 2018 Gratiana Lovelace (Post #1164)

I’m all aflutter with the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (image below):

Not since my own wedding 28.5 years ago have I had such palpitations about a wedding–the guests, the venue, and the weather–as I do for the wedding of British Prince Harry (not that Harry, below;  sighhh!) and American Meghan Markle.

Part of my restlessness for them stems from the notion that there are always wedding snafus to contend with:

1. Wedding invitations that have to be reprinted because the printers forgot to print the name of the church on them. Or in the case of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, with different people invited to different parts of the wedding, the right invitations and directions inserts to the wedding invitations envelopes.  Wouldn’t want to mix those up and have, say, a certain scandalous family member turn up at the wrong venue—where Grandpa might take them to task.  Or in our case, my husband’s late endearingly curmudgeonly father refusing to have his picture taken in the group wedding photos after the wedding.  He had done the individual shots with my hubby, his son, before hand.  And by the time the wedding service was finally over, he was tired, and hungry.

   2.  Worrying about whom to invite—not wanting to leave out important people of your parents’ friends, even if you don’t know them.  One lady invited to my wedding called up my Dad and grilled him as to why she was invited.  We eventually figured out who she was—an acquaintance of my mother’s who had gotten lumped into the not wanting to offend someone category of mercy invites.  She’s actually a very nice and funny lady whom I have gotten to know over the years.  And I would definitely invite her again—were my hubby and I to do a vows renewal.  Nope!  That’s not happening.  One wedding was enough.  Ha!

   3.  Wondering if the wedding guests who do show up will behave themselves.  One tip is to not serve alcohol at the reception.  God love my college friends and such.  Their weddings and receptions were wonderful, but very booze laden—with the attendant antics, especially when one groom used other than his fingers (*cough*) to tug the garter off of his brides’ leg—to then toss it at the single men.    I think that he started the wedding night right then and there.   My wedding reception was held at the church with fruit punch as the only beverage refreshment to the appetizers and cake.  Ha!

   4.  Hiring a reliable wedding reception caterer only to find out one week before the wedding that they are due to go out of business the day after the wedding; and then having to remind them of their contract.  This is everyone’s nightmare—or was at least, mine.  Yet despite my worries, the caterers did a great job.  Except, they did forget to put the little bridal couple figures on the top of our wedding cake.  But the 300 bbq meatballs appetizers left over from the 600 meatballs ordered with the other appetizers—since my cousins could not travel 1 hour to our town for my wedding due to dense fog that day making travel hazardous, and thus were not there to consume at least 150 of the meatballs–were tasty to munch on for months.

   5. The wedding gown has to be perfect—something between a fluffy meringue (the late Princess Diana’s wedding gown, below A), an embroidered extravaganza with star symbols abounding (Queen Elizabeth II’s wedding gown, below B), and an elegantly simple ivory sheath with illusion sleeves being the only skin showing and nothing cleavage baring (that channels the late Princess Margaret’s wedding gown, below C);

A) Princess Diana’s wedding gown:

B) Queen Elizabeth II’s wedding gown (I love the bodice embroidery, though not the skirting embroidery):

C) Princess Margaret’s wedding gown (breathtaking!):

Whatever Meghan Markle wears for her wedding gown, she is sure to be a beautiful bride.  As we ponder her processional to her groom awaiting her in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor castle, let’s enjoy a bit of Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary—what Prince Harry’s late mother Princess Diana walked up the aisle to at Westminster Abbey:

 

And the smouldering British actor Richard Armitage (from 2016 below, thanks to DurinLass)  couldn’t look sexier on this celebration SatuRdAy, but also pensive–and maybe a little tired from his then Berlin Station promo blitz.  Yet, he almost seems to be daring me to look away …  from watching the Royal Wedding.

So I’m pondering right now if I can get to sleep for 2.5 hrs and then wake up at 4am Chicago time to watch the Royal Wedding of Harry and Meghan?  Or should I sleep in and wait for the summary videos later?

 

Gasp!  I blaspheme!  I will awaken promptly and eat lemon cake and drink hot tea from my own Royal Doulton Princeton  wedding china tea cup while I livestream the Royal Wedding and its surrounding hoopla.  I can sleep later, I hope.

Joining in on watching the wedding is part of the fun.  For the late Princess Diana’s wedding many years ago, our college friends group hosted an American Tea Party Royal Wedding Watch at a friend’s home.  That Tea Party phrase has unfortunate connotations these days, that it didn’t have back then.

For our Lady Diana Wedding Tea Party, everyone had to come up with an outlandish guest name, wear a hat, and bring gracious party foods to share:

1. One Black friend came as Lady Diana Ross. I think I was something like Princess Chantal Radishwill.
2. And Lady Diana Ross rocked his small pink pill hat fascinator with a short veil. My hat was a feathered turban of my mother’s that would have also worked well for a conehead wedding, too. In Mom’s defense, I never saw her actually wear that hat—which was probably from the 1940’s.
3. For the food, our hostess supplied kiwi margaritas—and much other alcohol—along with icing laden desserts shared by others.   I’m the guest who made forty tiny triangle chicken salad and cucumber finger sandwiches from small specialty cocktail breads with the crusts cut off and served on a silver platter!

 

So it’s another Saturday with a wedding—albeit a Royal Wedding.  I will definitely be up at 4am Saturday, May 19^th, 2018 and eagerly watching the Royal Wedding live feed.  Below is the Yahoo link for that live stream feed:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/royal-wedding-watch-prince-harry-meghan-markle-get-married-live-155046978.html

 

But most of all on their wedding day, I wish for Prince Harry and his bride Meghan Markle every happiness that they wish for themselves.   Weddings are a joyful new beginning for two people—creating a new family for the future.  Many blessings to them and to you!

 

Hugs & Cheers for a glorious day!

 

P.S.  And here’s a reminder of Prince Williams and Kate’s wedding processional at Westminster Abbey: