My Trip to the Royal Wedding!

I know it's been awhile, but I've been so busy since I returned from Europe with weddings.
BUT I just had to post about my Trip to the Royal Wedding!

We got in on Tuesday, and went from the airport to Westminster Abbey. Got there with about two hours left before they closed it until after the wedding. I got to walk the long aisle...about a 3 minute walk.  I couldn't believe the number of lights, cameras, cabling, and tv's set up inside. Very strange in this historic setting.

Not allowed to take photos inside unfortunately! So we moved on to the store and bought several souvenirs....including my royal wedding tea cup that I use everyday.
 

The first guy (see below) had just set up camp outside the Abbey when we got there.  He talked to so many tv crews and I've since seen  him in several magazines. We went each day to check out the crowds, and the signs some people set out were amazing, touching, and funny!

The amount of media coverage was insane...here's the grandstand out front of the Abbey.

 After our quick Abbey tour...we were off to site see...but couldn't get away from the royal wedding...it was everywhere.

Then finally it was the day of the wedding.  It ends up that not many people were camping out along the whole route all week....only in front of Westminster Abbey. So we didn't have to camp out ourselves.  We got up early (4 am..not so bad)  and made our way to The Mall (the main road leading to Buckingham Palace) and found front row seats. Bought some memorabilia including flags, and the official wedding program. It's amazing how close we were, we were only a little over a car lane width away really!

The crowds were so nice....we traded hats, people passed around cake....a total air of excitement. 
We would cheer for anyone driving by, including the street sweepers who waved at us with their "royal wave" smiling all the way.

Finally, it was time, and the energy of the crowd really took over...you would know when someone was coming...the cheers would come in waves....then after a car went by everyone would be beaming at how exciting it was to see " fill in royal name here", how they looked etc...  The buses of guests would drive by waving and taking pictures of us as we did the same.  We would follow along from our list of who was next in the car processional...oh, it's just the "minor" royals, now the "major royals"...at one point we thought we saw Lady Gaga, but it was just Princess Beatrice in that crazy hat.

We tried to stream it all live, but with so many people there was NO way that was happening. My sister's husband called us and would give us updates..."the Queen is leaving, she's wearing yellow"...we'd pass the news to the crowd, and a few moments later there she was. 

Without the live feed we listened to the ceremony over the speakers they set up in the park, and followed along in our official program...singing, standing, sitting, reciting along with everyone else who attended.  Of course, there was the huge cheer when they were pronounced which was incredibly loud, and then the laughter right after at the shock of how loud we were.

We waved our flags and cheered as the carriages went by ...William and Kate waved right at us!!!! She was even more beautiful in person than in photos...how that's possible I don't know?

We'd had our fill of crowds, and knew we wouldn't be able to get close to the Palace to see the big kiss. So we made our way to the park behind us for a Pimm's (apparently as much of an English tradition as tea....only this is some kind of alcoholic fruit, cucumber and mint concoction...very refreshing, but more than one and you could be in trouble!). We relaxed and waited for the fly over which was low, loud and directly overhead...another exciting moment.  Then headed home to do it all over again...to actually watch the whole thing from the comfort of a couch!

 

 

 

I skyped with Channel 9 news during the week and as I told them right after the wedding...beaming ear to ear....it really was even more exciting than I ever could have imagined!