Wedding Day

Given the big event today, I thought it appropriate to post about the marriage of Princess Alice and Prince Harry, also styled H.R.H. Duke of Gloucester.  I say that as I have just paid a £1.54 library fine and have renewed the ticket to keep it for another few weeks. 

There are more magical places she talks about after boarding school, and I hope to come back to those.  For a while she went off to Kenya.  She said that suitors tended to ‘expect a lot’ and she didn’t like how pushy some of them were.    Not only that, but it does sound as though she knew Prince Harry for most of her life and that there was very much a sort of  understanding between them, but she went to Kenya to enjoy the last of an entirely private life before marriage.  It won't just have been about being married, but about how becoming part of the royal family would change her life.  For example, I was reading that this would be the last Christmas that Kate would be able to spend with her own family.  Imagine never being able to make that choice again.

Their wedding took place on 6 November 1935 at 11.30 am.  Her dress, by Hartnell, was described in The Sketch as being “in deep ivory, with a wonderful pink pearl tinge.”

Bill and I are invited to a 'Wedding Tea' at his cousin Michael’s.  Cousin Kathleen and her husband Bobby will also be there.  Bill reckons this is the doing of Michael’s partner, Christine more than Mike’s; guys don’t get that excited about royal weddings, do they?  We’re requested to bring ‘buns’.  

After 15 years over here I still get into trouble with the terms ‘tea’ and ‘buns’.  My natural inclination would be that we were being invited to have a warm milky beverage and were asked to bring something like a small puffy bread loaf that one could split open and deposit a hamburger patty into (they don’t do ‘hamburger’ here either…too German, you know).

I’ve finally learned that ‘tea time’ up here in the North generally means somewhere between 3.30 and 5 pm, ‘Tea’ is a meal that might include pork pies or it might just be a piece of cake.  ‘Buns’ means what I would probably call a cupcake, which Bill is baking just now as I type, only I think he’s making another carrot cake, this time including the cream cheese and butter icing.   He does a mean carrot cake, but my stomach doesn't tolerate sweet stuff well, so I'll be approaching that carefully.

I’m looking forward to watching the wedding on TV, or at least parts of it.  The big thing will be Her Dress; after that I’m not too fussed.  I’m reading about people in the US getting up at 4 am to see the spectacle; can’t say I would do the same even here, in spite of the fact that it is a holiday and I’m retired and wouldn’t have to go to work after.  I’d settle for re-runs, me.

I wish them both - Kate and Will - luck.  I think marriage can be tough enough without being royalty.  A person is nervous enough on their wedding day without having the entire world watch you do it!  I’m curious to see if there will be commercials inserted in the coverage here in the UK.  My guess is not, but I’ll let you know.