An extract from:
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_of_Prince_William_and_Catherine_Middleton
Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton:
The wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine Middleton took place on 29 April 2011 at Westminster Abbey in London. Prince William, second in the line of succession to Queen Elizabeth II, first met Catherine Middleton in 2001, when both were studying at the University of St Andrews. Their engagement on 20 October 2010 was announced on 16 November 2010.
The build-up to the wedding and the occasion itself attracted much media attention, with the service being broadcast live around the world, and being compared and contrasted in many ways with the 1981 marriage of William's parents, Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales. Estimates of the global audience for the wedding range from 300 million to two billion people, although the verifiable global audience was 161 million viewers drawing from 47% of the world's population, whilst 24.5 million watched the event live in the United Kingdom.
Much of the attention focused on Kate Middleton's status as a commoner (i.e. not a part of the aristocracy) marrying into royalty. Hours before the service, the Queen conferred the titles Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn, and Baron Carrickfergus upon William. Upon her marriage, Middleton therefore became Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge.
As Prince William was not the heir apparent to the throne, the wedding was not a full state occasion and many details were left to the couple to decide, such as much of the guest list of about 1,900. It was a public holiday in the United Kingdom and featured many ceremonial aspects, including use of the state carriages and roles for the Foot Guards and Household Cavalry. It was attended by most of the Royal Family, as well as many foreign royals, diplomats, and the couple's chosen personal guests.
Middleton wore a white dress with a 270-centimetre (110 in) train, by British designer Sarah Burton, as well as a tiara lent to her by the Queen.
Prince William wore the uniform of his honorary rank of Colonel of the Irish Guards. William's best man was his brother, Prince Harry, while the bride's sister, Pippa, acted as her maid of honour.
After the ceremony, the newly married couple travelled in procession to Buckingham Palace for the traditional appearance on the balcony and a flypast before crowds assembled in The Mall. Later the Prince drove his Duchess the short distance to Clarence House in his father's classic Aston Martin DB6 Volante, decorated by Prince Harry and James Middleton[citation needed] with a number plate "JU5T WED".
Following the wedding, the couple intend to continue living on Anglesey in North Wales, where Prince William is based as an RAF Search and Rescue. pilot.
Prince William is the elder son of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales, and grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. As such, he is second, behind his father, in the line of succession to the throne in 16 independent states known as the Commonwealth realms.
William was educated at Ludgrove School, Eton College, and the University of St Andrews, after which he was commissioned as an officer from Sandhurst in the Blues and Royals regiment of the Household Cavalry. He later transferred to the RAF and went on to become a full-time pilot with the Search and Rescue Force at RAF Valley, Anglesey.
Catherine "Kate" Middleton is the eldest of three children born to Michael and Carole Middleton. She was educated at St Andrew's School in Pangbourne, Marlborough College, and the University of St Andrews.
After graduating, she worked in retail and then as an accessories buyer/catalogue photographer at her parents' business. She is primarily of English descent, but with a few distant Scottish and French Huguenot ancestors. Her paternal family came from Leeds, West Yorkshire, while her mother's maternal family, the Harrisons, were working-class labourers and miners from County Durham.
The couple met while undergraduates at the University of St Andrews, where they both lived at St Salvator's Hall during their first year, after which they shared accommodation in the town for two years.
In a study of the ancestry of Catherine, William Addams Reitwiesner uncovered that she shares ancestors with Prince William; the closest relationship is via a common descent from Sir Thomas Fairfax and his wife Agnes Gascoigne, daughter of Sir William Gascoigne and his wife, née Lady Margaret Percy, making William and Catherine fifteenth cousins.
Engagement announcement:
On 16 November 2010, Clarence House announced that Prince William, elder son of the Prince of Wales, was to marry his long-time girlfriend Catherine Middleton "in the Spring or Summer of 2011, in London". They were engaged in October 2010 while on a private holiday in Kenya; William gave Middleton the same engagement ring that his father had given to William's mother, Diana, Princess of Wales —an 18-carat white gold ring with a 12-carat oval sapphire and 14 round diamonds.
It was announced at approximately the same time that, after their marriage, the couple will live on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales, where Prince William is based with the Royal Air Force.
The original engagement announcement stated that the wedding would be "in the spring or summer of 2011". On 23 November 2010 the date of Friday 29 April 2011 was confirmed. It was later announced that the day will be declared a public holiday throughout the United Kingdom.
Planning:
On 23 November 2010, Clarence House announced the date for the wedding as 29 April 2011 (Feast Day of Saint Catherine of Siena) and the venue as Westminster Abbey.
St James's Palace announced on 5 January that the ceremony would start at 11:00 local time and that the bride would arrive at the Abbey by car rather than by carriage (the latter is the traditional transport for royal brides.) The route planned was along The Mall, through Horse Guards Parade, and down Whitehall to the abbey.
Beforehand motorists and pedestrians were warned about using the roads during the ceremony. The AA advised that motorists take alternate routes as Central London was virtually sealed off.
COST:
It was also announced that the costs of the wedding itself will be met by the Royal Family and the Middletons themselves, while the costs of security and transport will be covered by the British treasury. The couple have also asked that donations be made to charities in place of traditional wedding gifts; to that end, they established The Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton Charitable Gift Fund, which focuses on assisting charities such as the New Zealand Christchurch Earthquake Appeal, the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary, the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and the Zoological Society of London.
The cost of the wedding was reportedly £20 million. The Australian newspaper Herald Sun estimated AU$32 million esd for security and AU$800,000 for flowers. Credible estimates of the cost of the special public holiday allowed for the wedding vary between £1.2 billion and £2.9 billion. The Government tourist authority VisitBritain predicts the wedding will trigger a tourism boom that will last several years, eventually pulling in an additional 4 million visitors, generating £2 billion for UK tourism.
TIMING:
At 6.00 am roads in and around the processional route were closed to traffic. From 8.15 am, the main congregation, governors-general, prime ministers of Commonwealth realms, and diplomats, all arrived at the Abbey. Princes William and Harry then left Clarence House at 10.10 am in a Bentley State Limousine, and arrived at 10.18 am, followed by representatives of foreign royal families, the Middleton family.
The Prince's own family (the Princess Royal, the Duke of York, Princess Beatrice of York, Princess Eugenie of York, the Earl and Countess of Wessex, Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall). By tradition, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were the last members of the Royal Family to leave Buckingham Palace, arriving at the Abbey for 10.48 am.
The bridal party then left the Goring Hotel in the former Number one State Rolls-Royce Phantom VI at 10.52 am,[60] in time for the service to begin at 11.00 am.
The service finished at 12.15 pm, after which the newly married couple travelled to Buckingham Palace in a procession consisting of other royal family members, the parents of the groom and bride, the best man and the bridesmaids.
At 1.25 pm, the couple appeared on the balcony at Buckingham Palace to watch a fly-past of an Avro Lancaster bomber, a Supermarine Spitfire fighter and a Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, followed by two Typhoons from RAF Coningsby and two Tornado GR4s from RAF Leuchars in a flat diamond formation.
Wedding Attire:
The bridal dress, designed by English designer Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen, was made of satin and featured a lace applique bodice and skirt. The lace bodice design was hand-made using a technique that originated in Ireland in the 1820s called Carrickmacross, which involved cutting out the detailings of roses, thistles, daffodils and shamrocks and applying them to the ivory silk tulle individually.
These lace appliques were hand-made by the Royal School of Needlework, based at Hampton Court Palace. The veil was held in place by a Cartier Scroll Tiara, made in 1936 and lent to her by the Queen. It was purchased by the Queen's father, the Duke of York (subsequently King George VI) for his Duchess (later Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mother) three weeks before succeeding his brother Edward VIII (Duke of Windsor) as King. Princess Elizabeth (now the Queen) received the tiara from her mother on her 18th birthday.
In order to avoid her tiara falling off, as had happened for Lady Diana Spencer during her 1981 wedding to the Prince of Wales, Catherine's stylists "backcombed the top [of her hair] to create a foundation for the tiara to sit around, then did a tiny plait in the middle and sewed it on."
For the customary bridal themes of "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue", Middleton's gown had the traditional Carrickmacross lace appointments (the "old"), diamond earrings given by her parents (the "new"), the Queen's tiara (the "borrowed"), and a blue ribbon sewn into the bodice (the "blue"). The shoes were also from Alexander McQueen and had a lace pattern matching the dress with appliques made by the Royal School of Needlework.
The bridal bouquet was designed by Shane Connolly, the bride's shield-shaped wired bouquet contained myrtle, Lily of the Valley, Sweet William and hyacinth.
Middleton's hair was styled in loose curls for the occasion by hair dresser James Pryce of the Richard Ward Salon. She received private make-up lessons from Arabella Preston and the entire bridal party received "makeup artistry assistance" from Bobbi Brown make-up artist Hannah Martin prior to the event, but ultimately Middleton did her own makeup for the occasion. The look was described as a "soft smokey eye" with pink lips and cheeks. Her nails were painted by manicurist Marina Sandoval in a mixture of two polishes: a "barely there pink" and a "sheer beige" to complement her skin tone and gown.
WEDDING RING:
The wedding ring of Catherine is made from Welsh gold. The ring was created by the royal warrant holder Wartski, a company with roots in Bangor, Gwynedd, north Wales. Since 1923, it has been a tradition in the royal family to use Welsh gold for the wedding ring of the bride.
This ring was made from a small amount of gold that had been kept in the royal vaults since it was presented to Queen Elizabeth II. It was mined from the Clogau Gold Mine in the mountains of North Wales, not far from Anglesey, where the couple live. The Clogau Gold Mine had its heyday in the late nineteenth century, was abandoned in the early twentieth century, was reopened in 1992 and finally closed in 1998. The Queen had "given a piece of the gold that has been in the family for many years to Prince William as a gift," a palace source stated. Prince William chose not to receive a wedding ring at the ceremony.
Title upon marriage:
On the morning of the wedding, William was created Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus, with Catherine becoming Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge after the wedding. This is in line with the practice of granting titles upon marriage to royal princes who did not already have one (for example, Prince Andrew, who was created Duke of York when he married in 1986). The titles also have symbolic meanings—Strathearn is close to St Andrews, Fife, in Scotland, where the couple met as students, and Carrickfergus in Northern Ireland. Combined with his existing titular link with Wales and his becoming Duke of Cambridge in England, his collective titles link William to each of the four countries in the United Kingdom.
Wedding cakes:
The wedding cake had a strong British floral theme, using elements of the Joseph Lambeth technique. It was an eight-tiered traditional fruit cake decorated with cream and white icing and 900 sugar paste flowers. The Lambeth technique is based on a style of decorating that was popular in England where chefs and decorators would use a lot of intricate piping to create 3-D scrollwork, leaves, flowers, and other decoration. The method is still popular today and is frequently used by wedding cake designers and decorators to create ornate wedding cakes.
The cake designer Fiona Cairns was chosen in February 2011 to create the wedding cake. Additionally, McVitie's created a groom's cake from chocolate biscuit for the reception at Buckingham Palace. The chocolate biscuit cake was made from a Royal Family recipe and was specially requested by Prince William.
Honeymoon:
Despite reports that the couple would leave for their honeymoon the day after their wedding, Prince William immediately returned to his work as a search-and-rescue pilot, and the couple did not depart until 10 days after their wedding. The location of the honeymoon was initially kept secret, with not even Catherine knowing where they would be heading. However, speculation ran rampant, fueled by the knowledge that she wanted to go someplace warm and her appearances shopping for warm-weather clothing.
Although the press speculated that they might be headed to locations such as South America, Jordan, and Kenya, the couple ultimately decided to honeymoon for 10 days on a secluded villa on a private island in the Seychelles. The length of the honeymoon was limited by William's RAF duties and the couple's official scheduled tour to Canada and the United States.
(Another part of my postpone entries. Completed in June but since it was planned to be published in May, I'll leave it that way.
