LONDON, (Reuters) – Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton married at Westminster Abbey today in a royal occasion of dazzling pomp and pageantry that has attracted a huge global audience and injected new life into the monarchy.
Before the vows, a veiled Middleton, the first “commoner” to marry a prince in close proximity to the throne in more than 350 years, walked slowly through the 1,900-strong congregation to the swirling strains of Charles Parry’s “I Was Glad”.
As they met at the altar William whispered to her, prompting a smile at the start of the ceremony. The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams declared the couple married with the words: “I pronounce that they be man and wife together.”
Middleton’s dress, the subject of fevered speculation for months in the fashion press, was a traditional ivory silk and satin outfit with a lace applique and long train.
She wore a tiara loaned by the queen and the diamond and sapphire engagement ring that once belonged to William’s mother Princess Diana, who was divorced from Prince Charles in 1996, a year before her death in a car crash in Paris aged just 36.
Bells pealed loudly and trumpets blared as 1,900 guests earlier poured into the historic abbey, coronation site for the monarchy since William the Conqueror was crowned in 1066.
Queen Elizabeth, other royals, David and Victoria Beckham, the footballer-pop star couple, singer Elton John and Prime Minister David Cameron were among famous guests at the abbey.
They joined 50 heads of state as well as charity workers and war veterans who know the prince from his military training.
HUGE CROWDS
Thousands of people from around the world were outside the abbey, many of them camping overnight for the best view of the future king and queen and fuelling the feel-good factor that has briefly lifted Britain from its economic gloom.
“People watching this at home must think we’re completely mad, but there’s just no comparison,” said 58-year-old Denise Mill from southern England. “I just had to be here.”
The crowd entered into the festive spirit on a chilly day by wearing national flags and even fake wedding dresses and tiaras. Hundreds of police officers, some armed, dotted the royal routes in a major security operation.
Tens of thousands more people crammed the flag-lined streets of London to catch a glimpse of marching military bands in black bearskin hats, cavalrymen in shining breastplates and ornate carriages that will carry royal figures from the service.
A large gathering is expected outside the queen’s London residence, Buckingham Palace, to cheer on the married couple as they appear on the balcony for a much-anticipated public kiss.
For some, however, the biggest royal wedding since Diana married Prince Charles in 1981 was an event to avoid, reflecting divided opinion about the monarchy.
“It’s just a wedding,” said 25-year-old Ivan Smith. “Everyone is going mad about it. I couldn’t care less.”
Inside the abbey: garden party to hushed service
* Reuters Bureau Chief Jodie Ginsberg in the abbey
* Some 1,900 guests were invited to service
* Abbey felt cocooned from celebrations outside
By Jodie Ginsberg
LONDON, (Reuters) – It was almost like being at two weddings for guests at the marriage service of Britain’s Prince William and long-term girlfriend Kate Middleton.
When we entered Westminster Abbey — ushered in through cool, quiet cloisters that felt a million miles away from the noisy crowds we knew were gathered outside — those members of the press lucky enough to have an admission card met a surprising sight.
Most of us expected to see row upon row of formally dressed guests, sitting quietly in their seats, waiting patiently for the ceremony to start.
Instead, the atmosphere was like a garden party. Groups of guests chatted in the aisles, surrounded by huge trees taken from the royal gardens which made the centre of the abbey feel more like a French boulevard than a church.
Light glittered off rows of chandeliers and off enormous stained glass windows. It was surprisingly warm.
I had expected a building that has witnessed royal coronations for nearly a thousand years to be chilly, drafty – even damp. Instead, the air felt soft and cosy.
We walked along the plush red carpet that Kate and William would later tread as husband and wife.
Everyone chatted amiably. William and Kate’s friends and family mingled with a broad range of guests that included royalty from around the world, global celebrities like Elton John and David Beckham, and shopkeepers from Middleton’s hometown.
I met the partner of one of Middleton’s uncles as we queued for the bathroom.
“The word surreal doesn’t begin to describe it,” Leah Lowinger said.
INSULATED
We were all strangely cocooned in the abbey. Only during pauses in the music could you hear the faint cheer of the crowd or the distant peal of the abbey’s bells. There were no Union Jacks, no waving crowds, just a sea of colourful hats.
Only one screen in the abbey — that closest to where we journalists were seated in Poets’ Corner — was showing the goings-on outside, and the ambassadors and foreign dignitaries seated near us craned their heads for a peek.
Like most people, we — and they — could barely see anything of what was happening in the abbey until the service began when the other screens, which until then showed a still picture of flowers, began broadcasting the service.
Guests peered out from between feathers, scrolls and hat brims to try to see what was going on.
As soon as Prince William arrived, the mood shifted. The informal atmosphere gave way to one of intense seriousness — it was almost as though the entire room was holding its breath.
The abbey became still and silent. The sweet, fresh scent of lilies of the valley, planted in containers throughout the abbey, wafted through the air.
Suddenly everyone was much more restrained. Even the singing felt cautious — although I gamely tried my best with the hymns.
There was no chatter, no real moments of levity. It all felt incredibly grand, but also a little sombre — perhaps because it was so hard to see or hear the couple, or because of the formality of the occasion.
Although I have been to many weddings in churches, this was the most overtly religious and formal of any I have attended, and this gave it a strangely impersonal air. Or maybe that stems from not knowing the couple and being with hundreds of others in a similar position.
Robbed of much of the ability to see the couple or speakers directly, and with no end-of-service kiss or drama, it will be the smell of the flowers — and the fabulous, goosepimple-inducing fanfares that I will remember most.
As one guest said as we were leaving the Abbey: “As a country we do know how to do ceremonies.”
Prince William pays tribute to Diana at wedding
LONDON, (Reuters) – Britain’s Prince William made sure his mother Princess Diana in his own words didn’t “miss out” on the ceremony and celebrations for his wedding to Kate Middleton in Westminster Abbey today.
His bride wore Diana’s engagement ring, a hymn from his late mother’s funeral was sung at the service and guests included Elton John — who sang “Candle in the Wind” at Diana’s funeral in the abbey.
Fourteen years ago, the eyes of the world watched as William, then 15, walked solemnly behind the coffin of his mother as it was taken through the packed streets of London to her funeral.
William wed Middleton in front of almost 2,000 guests and an audience of millions worldwide. But the one person conspicuous by her absence was Diana, who died in a Paris car crash in 1997.
From the moment the couple announced they were getting married last November, William has deliberately put the memory of Diana at the centre of celebrations, giving Middleton his mother’s large blue oval sapphire and diamond engagement ring.
“It’s very special to me,” William told reporters in November. “It’s my way of making sure my mother didn’t miss out on today and the excitement and the fact we are going to spend the rest of our lives together.”
The build-up to the day and the ceremony itself has been littered with reminders of Diana.
“The only downside on a perfect day was Diana not being there,” her brother Charles Spencer told the BBC after the wedding service. Before the wedding, the couple were reported to have visited Diana’s resting place, an island at her family’s Althorp estate in central England.
“It was very important for William to take Kate to visit his mum just before their wedding day,” a source told the Daily Mirror newspaper. “It is tragic that she won’t be there to see the wedding and that she never got to meet his bride.”
WEDDING ADDRESS
The wedding address was delivered by the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, who knew Diana since her 1981 marriage to William’s father Prince Charles and was an executor of her will.
He also delivered an address at a memorial service to mark the 10th anniversary of her death.
One of the hymns chosen by the couple for their service, “Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer”, was the final one to be sung at Diana’s funeral.
“I think it’s the most joyous result and I’m sure Diana would be very, very happy about it,” pop star John said of William’s upcoming wedding in a recent U.S. TV interview.
Diana was a royal outcast when she was killed aged 36, a year after she and Charles divorced.
However, her huge popularity both at home and abroad dwarfed that of the royal family and her early death generated enormous sympathy for William and his younger brother Harry, sentiments that have meant both retain much public sympathy to this day.
Two other guests at Friday’s wedding will also forever be linked to Diana and her untimely death — Charles’s second wife Camilla who he married in 2005 and Diana’s brother.
Diana blamed Camilla for the breakdown of her relationship with heir-to-the-throne Charles, famously saying in a TV interview “there were three of us in this marriage”.
Spencer will be remembered for the scathing attack he launched on the House of Windsor at his sister’s funeral, promising William and Harry would not be stifled by the royals and their souls would not be immersed by duty and tradition.
He gave the wedding his seal of approval.
“It was incredibly beautiful wasn’t it? Very moving,” he said, before expressing regret at Diana’s absence.
“But what a wonderful day, such a celebration.”