Sunday, May 1, 2011

Royal Wedding: Part 4.

A brief thing. I wrote a second article for The Northwest Indiana times covering the excitement for the wedding right up to the procession. It's not available online, so I'm putting up what I wrote here.

Kass Stone
Times Correspondent
London – The celebration of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding has been building for weeks.
On Wednesday afternoon, the children of Plumstead Manor Nursery (located on London’s South East side) celebrated the royal nuptials with a wedding party in William and Kate’s honor. The little girls came dressed in their best princess dresses and the boys came bedecked in their finest suits. They made royalty themed arts and crafts, ate wedding cake, danced and waved their Union Jacks proudly in honor of the prince and new princess.
Plumstead Manor Nursery treasurer Jean Reader is a lifelong fan of the monarchy. In her late 70s, Reader was one of the hundreds of thousands of people that cheered Queen Elizabeth’s coronation procession in 1953. For her, the wedding and community events like the nursery party are important for British society.
“If you look around, there are a lot of different nationalities living here and this helps make it all gel,” said Reader. “After all, we do have a monarchy and we should celebrate it. We are here to wave the flag.”
Crown Point natives Chris and Lisa Westworth had planned to be amongst the throng of people cheering on the royal wedding procession. Their plans had to change when Lisa gave birth to their son, Cayden, several weeks early. They are now content to watch the ceremony from the comfort of their home in the West London neighborhood of Chiswick.
“I just like the fact that we live in London while everyone is so obsessed about this wedding and that one day we can tell our son that we lived here when King William and Queen Kate were married. It is kind of exciting,” said Lisa Westworth.
Amongst the carnival atmosphere of vendors and celebrants in Trafalgar Square early Friday morning, just outside the route the wedding procession will take from Buckingham Palace along The Mall to Westminster Abbey, were Canadians Amy Beckham and Brenda Hooton. The two traveled from their home in Niagra Falls, Ontario to celebrate the wedding in London.
“We’re here because I think there is so much bad news in the world and this is an opportunity to be happy and just have a good time,” said Beckham. “Besides, we share the royal family. She’s our queen too. She’s on our money too.”
On The Mall, seeking a place to witness the procession, were Mark Abella and Mandy Yoxall of Sydney, Australia.
“It’s our heritage. They’re our royal family too. It’s a once in a life time opportunity for us. We’re not going to get to experience this again, seeing a king married,” said Yoxall. “I mean, Prince Harry will probably get married, but he’s not going to be king.”

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