DakotaPam posted about the royal wedding on her blog here. We don't have TV, but I did look at some photos of the day. After reading her post, I decided to watch the wedding on hulu.com. Ram made fun of me a little because I had joked about the wedding earlier in the day. It seemed so ironic that Americans were so thrilled to watch this on TV when it wasn't so long ago that Americans fought for their rights to get away from being subjects of the same royalty that they were watching on TV!
I was glad to watch it later, I never would have got up in the middle of the night to watch the wedding. (Although there was a minor earthquake not too far from us that night that I think woke Lamb 3 and it took me a little while to get him settled back in bed so I could have watched it.)
What surprised me was how much the royal wedding reminded me of my own wedding. There were glimpses through the whole wedding that reminded me of December 29, 2001. Her bouquet was made of lily of the valley, which I love. As a little girl I tended to the lily of the valley in our yard to assure it came up each spring. I had a perfume that smelled like lily of the valley that I loved. I couldn't have lily of the valley because I was married in December. In fact the small white flower that I chose froze that year and the florist improvised because she didn't have what I requested. My bouquet ended up being much bigger than I had imagined. I would have loved a small bouquet like Catherine's.
I loved Catherine's dress partly because her dress reminded me of my dress. Of course my train wasn't as long as hers, but I had a long train. I had long sleeve lace sleeves like hers. I wore a tiara with a veil in the back. Ram's tux looked English, like what Prince Charles would wear.
Being LCMS, the church service reminded me at least in structure of our wedding service. My wedding was held here (sorry the website is under construction now, but at least you can see a photo). It was a very high church wedding. The pastor that married us wrapped his stole around our hands as we knelt just like the bishop did for William and Catherine. I think there were more pastors/seminarians involved in our wedding service than the wedding party. The school children were invited to our wedding and the congregation was invited to sing the Lord's Prayer and the Te Deum with the school children leading. Of course the church wasn't as big as Westminster Abbey, but it seemed like a long aisle to go down myself and a big beautiful historic church.
I found the "confession" part of the service very interesting. Our wedding service wasn't as blunt as that, but my dad preached the sermon and he had a confession and absolution for Ram and I as part of the sermon.
The commentary talked about how Catherine seemed much more relaxed when they came out after they went in the back room and signed the papers. She seemed to enjoy the rest of the ceremony/day and not be so nervous. My dad said something to me when we got to the end of the aisle after processing in that made me cry. I didn't have a chance to wipe the tears away until we went in the back room to sign the papers. (Our church had us go to the side chapel and sign the marriage license while the congregation sang a hymn in the middle of the wedding service.) The pastor back there cracked some jokes back there while we were signing papers. I came back without tears and could concentrate on enjoying the rest of the service.
For my own wedding, the only "mistake" that we caught was the flowers we ordered for the alter sat in the back room and were never put on the altar. We were married at Christmas so there were enough Christmas trees and poinsettias that no one missed the one more bouquet of flowers that was supposed to be there. It seemed as if everything went perfectly for the royal wedding. If there were mistakes they were very minor. I'm happy for them that everything went so well.
I'm so glad that there was an event that was watched all over the world that was a Christian event with Jesus' name mentioned several times. Even if it is all for show and no matter how the marriage turns out, I'm glad that Christ's name was proclaimed proudly at Westminster Abbey.
My next question is how many babies will be named Catherine or William in the near future?
1 comment:
I watched the recessional before leaving for church. It made me think of our wedding, too! As with all weddings, I pray for their marriage. It was interesting to read about your wedding comparisons!
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