A Tale of Two Weddings

Sad to say, I am old enough to recall the day Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer. In fact, I remember it well. It wasn’t a particularly sunny Wednesday but at least it wasn’t raining, and in a British Summer that’s a serious plus.

I had organized a picnic in the garden for friends and family, and to the accompaniment of my three-year old banging drums, speed-racing his tricycle and serving up water-logged cereal in teacups, we watched the ceremony on TV, tears in our eyes.
Most of us wanted to believe the fairy-tale. We wanted these two people to be madly, truly, deeply in love. As we witnessed them make their promises to each other — she stumbling over her words and almost marrying the Duke of Edinburgh and he tenderly squeezing her hand in reassurance — we thought about the promises to love and cherish that we had made, or hoped to make one day.

Somehow it was all the more glorious because history was in the making and there were horses and carriages, robes and rulers, trumpets and tiaras, cameras…. Read the rest of Penny Thornton’s article here.