Very Modern British Royal Wedding - Prince William and Kate Middleton

Very Modern British Royal Wedding - Prince William & Kate Middleton

Kisses on the balcony and jokes at the altar – these were some of the elements that made the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding more modern and intimate than previous royal weddings. The organizers of the wedding managed to combine contemporary moments with all of the grandeur and pomp expected of a British royal wedding. This arguably made this royal wedding much more enjoyable than any of the previous ones.

This royal couple is also extremely different from previous royal couples. Katherine Middleton is the first commoner to marry a royal in the direct line of succession for many years, for example. She is also the first university graduate to marry an heir to the throne. The Duke and Duchess’s relationship has been very modern in other ways too. They lived together for many years before marrying. Even Princess Diana who married Prince Charles only thirty years ago was famously supposed to be a virgin.

Kate Middleton is not only a commoner; she also has fairly humble origins. She comes from a middle-class family and she even has working-class ancestors who worked in the coal mines! She is certainly not the only commoner who a royal heir has married for love, however.

David Starkey, the English historian, writes that by marrying Kate Prince William is returning to an old tradition of marrying commoners. Young Edward IV started the pattern when he fell in love with the older widow, Elizabeth Woodville. He famously met her under an oak tree and was impressed with her beauty when she pleaded with him for the restoration of her children’s lands. He married her in secret with only a few witnesses at the wedding.

The marriage angered the Earl of Warwick who had helped the young King gain the throne. He wanted Edward to marry the King of France’s sister-in-law for strategic reasons. The King’s marriage eventually lost him his throne when the Woodville family became too powerful for Warwick’s liking and he started a rebellion against the King.

Katherine Swynford may be the commoner who the Duchess of Cambridge resembles most. She was a governess who married John of Gaunt in the thirteenth century. Like Kate Middleton, she was well-educated but she had humble origins.

Royals were generally supposed to marry for strategic or political reasons so marrying commoners was frowned upon. Marrying for love was also out of the question. King Edward VIII famously had to give up his throne because he fell in love with a twice-divorced American. As the King and the Head of the Church of England he couldn’t marry a divorced woman. He abdicated so that he could marry the bride of his own choice.

King Edward VIII was certainly not the only royal who fell in love with the wrong woman. George IV fell in love with a Catholic when he was the prince and married her in secret. He hated his eventual bride, Caroline of Brunswick, and even went up the chapel for the wedding service ‘quite drunk’. The marriage ended with a scandalous divorce.

Luckily, Queen Victoria was able to marry the man who she loved. She even had to propose to him because she was the Queen and he was only a prince. Like Queen Victoria, Prince William chose his own partner and he is also very much in love with his new spouse.

One major difference between the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding and most previous royal weddings is that their wedding was quite austere whilst previous royal weddings were quite spectacular. Queen Victoria’s wedding, for example, was an extremely grand and extravagant occasion. When the Queen got into her carriage to go to her wedding service a 21 gun salute was set off. Her wedding procession into St. James’s Chapel was preceded by heralds, trumpeters, official members of the royal family, Chamberlains, and Lord Melbourne carrying the sword of state. Queen Victoria had twelve bridesmaids who bore her train. Queen Victoria even had several wedding cakes, instead of one.

Queen Victoria’s wedding dress was also costly. She wore a dress of white satin with a deep flounce of Honiton lace. The lace alone cost 1000 pounds, a large sum in those days. The train of her dress was 18 feet long.

Princess Diana also had an extravagant wedding. She arrived in a glass coach at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Like Queen Victoria, she had several bridesmaids. The opera singer, Kiri Te Kanawa, sang at the wedding. She wore an expensive dress specially designed by Elizabeth and David Emmanuel, which featured an extremely long train – 25 feet.

By contrast, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge cut down on the expenses of their wedding because of the dark economic times. The couple didn’t want complaints about a wedding that was too extravagant. The royal family and the Middletons even paid for the cost of the actual wedding – this was unusual because the expenses of royal weddings are usually born by the State. Kate Middleton only had one maid-of-honour, her sister, Pippa. She also arrived at Westminster Abbey in a Rolls-Royce instead of a coach. Even her dress was austere compared with the bouffant style of Princess Diana’s. The Duchess wore a stream-lined and elegant dress with lace and a relatively short train. Kate Middleton even applied her own makeup after receiving lessons from the makeup artist, Arabella Preston.

The wedding of the Duke and Duchess was also more modern than Princess Diana’s. Prince Harry and Prince William seemed to share a few happy moments at the altar, whereas Prince Charles’s wedding was very stiff. The young couple also had two kisses on the balcony instead of the one rather awkward one shared by Prince Charles and Princess Diana. The most informal part of the wedding occurred after the reception when Prince William sped his new bride away in a vintage Aston-Martin decorated with streamers and balloons! Although the wedding was a splendid occasion which featured antique coaches, and the traditional Anglican wedding service, these informal moments were also greatly enjoyed by the public.