The Royal Wedding

I have had an excellent day so far today, parked on the sofa at my mother-in-law's house, watching the Royal Wedding on wide screen in high definition with my mother-in-law on one side and my grandmother-in-law on the other, keeping up a running commentary on twitter to my loyal followers (ha) and by text message to my lovely sister. A Royal Wedding pretty much sums up my kind of day - a nostalgic event affording a day off from work and a chance to watch TV with little substance involving love, weddings and fashion, eating cake, drinking champagne and tea and surrounded by family. I also enjoy the sentimentality and the outpouring of public affection and the chance to be proud to be British.

I have always felt some kind of affinity to William and Kate as we met the same year, both at university, I am 4 days older than Kate and M is 3 days younger than William. My home town is the nearest town to Kate's village. I was particularly looking forward to this day, to their wedding. I love weddings and I was only sad that their wedding was not the same year as our own :)

I thought the wedding service was lovely and I particularly enjoyed the choice of music. Two of the hymns (Love Divine All Loves Excelling and Jerusalem) were two of the same hymns that we had at our own wedding and we also had a choral motet during the service (ours was performed by our university chapel choir). The acoustics at Westminster Abbey are fantastic and I loved the way that the music was at once personal yet soared right up to fill the entire Abbey.

Fashion wise, I enjoyed not only spotting the clothes but also getting ideas for what does and doesn't work for wedding outfits. I had read in Tatler that Samantha Cameron might break with tradition and not wear a hat, but despite her lovely dress, I really think it was sad she didn't wear one for such a formal occasion. There are many occasions to break with the dress code, but I really think she shouldn't have drawn attention to herself by not wearing one. I also thought Beatrice, Eugene and Anne looked bloody awful. Kate however, I thought looked stunning. Understated but also regal. Perfect.

I loved Kate's dress but for me, the stand out dresses were those of Pippa and the baby bridesmaids. I suspect a fair few upcoming brides will be wearing a version of Pippa's gown and I am already working on getting my sister to get capes for her baby bridesmaids. I particularly enjoyed little Grace Van Cutsem's habit of covering her ears when the cheering got a little too loud (both on entering the Abbey and standing on the balcony) and am thinking I might teach that to my sister's littlies too. Other stand out moments for me included the extended royal family climbing out of a fleet of little buses, the Queen rolling her eyes as Camilla curtsied awkwardly to her, Prince Philip trying to get into his carriage afterwards and William's colleagues revealing how they have purchased souvenirs for the kitchen and implying that William drank his tea at work out of a William and Katherine mug.

I also enjoyed the opportunity to watch the William and Kate film on channel 5 - it was so poorly made and acted that it was almost funny. And now, more champagne drinking, some bowling on the Wii and preparing for the rest of the weekends festivities which include my mother-in-law's 60th birthday.

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photo by the British Monarchy's Flickr stream