It’s so sweet that you got up early to watch this and drink tea with your grandmother! What a wonderful memory. I’m American but I somehow inherited a bunch of commemorative plates from the reign of Victoria. I imagine my ancestors had great tea parties for those events too.

describe Prince Charles as “the hero of the hour” who “beneath the pomp and titles” is a “nice, rather nervous young man on the most tender and important journey of his life.”

Totally agree on the wedding dress. At the time, my mother proclaimed it to be “juvenile”, which of course is what one might expect from someone who had just turned 20. I never really bought into all of the hype over Diana; I think it was just everyone projecting their own romantic fantasies onto her. (However, I…

all 80s wedding dresses were hideous

The dress had to be BIG because the cathedral was so huge - but probably better in design than execution. The huge silk skirt was irretrievably crumpled by being stuffed into the glass coach so resembled a rumpled duvet cover by the time she extricated herself from the coach. And a decade of giant bows was kick…

I requested a 14 foot long veil because of the shot of her coming up the aisle. Although hers was of course much longer, I just loved that shot. It was one of several shots my photographer missed and the only thing you see of my veil is it bunched up at the foot of my dress, sigh...