Here's a post from the last royal wedding! Enjoyed the one today!
Here's a little teaser! A little pink for Pink Saturday! Next week I'll be posting all the pictures from my Royal Wedding Supper Tea party, but this week ... just a little tease! Make sure you click through to see all the other pink posts ... but first, take a look at my Royal Wedding post, updated with a couple wedding pictures from today. Enjoy ... and make sure you come back next week for a full display of my royal tablescape!
It's Royal Wedding Time! I have always enjoyed studying the British Royals and my two favorites are Queen Victoria ... because she had spunk ... and Princess Diana ... because she had spunk! I doubt that those two women would ever have agreed on anything ... but they were both driven by what they thought was right ... "right" was probably not defined in the same ways!
The marriage of Prince William and Catherine will be an exciting time and I'm having a supper tea party to commemorate the occasion. You'll have to check my site next weekend to see pictures of my tablescape! Did you know that Queen Elizabeth is hosting the wedding reception and is only serving appetizers and sparkling lemonade, wine and champagne? Typically, royal wedding receptions have included elaborate multi-course meals ... but not this time. Why? Maybe the menu is a reflection of the economic times all over the world. Maybe the Queen is sensitive to the notion that being extravagant might not be appropriate. We shouldn't be surprised by that. Then Princess Elizabeth was married in 1947, just two years after the end of World War II. Great Britain was still using clothing rations and Princess Elizabeth was given 200 extra clothing coupons to use to buy her trousseau. The coupons had been donated by young women all over Great Britain. Queen Elizabeth understands austerity.
Did you know that Queen Victoria started the tradition of wearing white as a wedding gown? Until that time, the color blue symbolized chastity and purity ... but she wore what she wanted to wear and dressed her attendants in white gowns that she had designed herself! Her bouquet included orange blossoms and myrtle, which she had grown in her garden. She married Prince (Consort) Albert in 1840. No expense was spared for their wedding (reception) breakfast was served in early afternoon and
the menu was ten courses including Ballotine of Duck with Cumberland Sauce.
Here's the wedding portrait of Victoria and Albert's son, the future King Edward VII and the Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The Edwardian era was a time of abundance and high fashion ... a time when the upper class splurged on everything! Edward and Alexandra's marriage was the first Royal wedding to be photographed!
Their son, the future King George V, married Princess Victoria Mary of Teck in 1893. The Princess was supposed to have married George's older brother who died six weeks after the original engagement was announced. Growing closer through their grieving, George and Mary fell in love.
Here's then Princess Elizabeth on her 1947 wedding day ... doing the official balcony wave! We've grown so accustomed to seeing these sites on the balcony! Elizabeth's trousseau might have been 'subsidized' because of the times, but her wedding seemed to lack nothing! Her 500 pound wedding cake was 9 feet tall! Her bouquet included a sprig of myrtle from the bush grown for Queen Victoria's wedding bouquet over a hundred years earlier.
Finally ... here's Princess Diana. I think Lady Di shared a sense of normalcy with the British Monarchy, but I'm not sure they wanted it! She was a beautiful bride ... and a true humanitarian. I think she was a great mom ... and had a magnificent influence on the two young Princes. I suspect the future of Great Britain will tell the story we don't yet know. Prince William seems to have a level head ... accepting his duties ... and respecting all people.
So here he is! The great-great-great-great grandson of Queen Victoria ... the ruler who did things her way! It is hard not to remember those early pictures right after he was born! What a cutie ... Now he's about to enter that next chapter of life. I expect to see the streets lined with thousands of onlookers ... flags waiving. I cannot wait to see Catherine walk down the aisle. I'm
not admitting that I am a Royal-watcher ... but I certainly enjoyed watching this young man's mother. She was true to herself ... and I want him to be just like her ... and just like Queen Victoria! 'Spunk' is the word ... do it your way!
And here they are ... the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge ... the future King and Queen of England!
