The day Prince Harry saw his face on my t-shirt

 If you can look at the following picture of me and still view me as a respectable member of society, please keep reading.

THE Royal Wedding 2018!!
Guys, I would be a bold faced liar if I didn't say that my sister and I orchestrated a trip to London in order to catch a glimpse of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on their wedding day. As soon as the date was announced I confirmed that I'd be out of classes and called up Morgan. There really is nothing like a royal wedding, and this may be the last one of it's kind for quite a while! Morgan was on board, so we booked our flights and bought some crazy t-shirts to commemorate this exciting event.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when my fascination with all things Royal Family began. My mom was a big Princess Diana fan (who wasn't?) so it may have started then. I've read books and watched too many documentaries to mention. Then, when Prince William and Kate came to New Zealand in 2014 I was able to see them in our city of Christchurch. WHAT A THRILL. 


(RIP -- William's hair)

So it didn't really seem that crazy to want to fly across the Atlantic to witness the biggest royal event in years, but I suppose to an outsider it might seem like a bit much.

Nonetheless, Morgan and I arrived in London 2 days before the big day. We have both been there before, but still had a lot of new things that we wanted to see/do. We spent one afternoon at the natural history museum, had afternoon tea, and walked around the beautiful Chelsea neighborhood. 

On Friday we met up with my friend Jo, who is from the UK but whom I met while living in New Zealand. Jo was not as gung-ho about our ambitions to attend the royal wedding but was supportive and came down to join us for the ride. And while she may have been a bit embarrassed by our t-shirts, I think she was secretly just as excited about the big day :) Our outfit was complete!


I feel like you can only prepare so much before you attend one of these things with about 100,000 other people who are just as crazy as you. We took the train into Windsor the morning of the wedding, around 8:00am, but people had been camping on the streets for days beforehand! 

I likened the experience of arriving at Windsor that morning to walking into Disneyland but for Royal family fans. There were people dressed up, concession stands, and traffic was closed off to allow the throngs of people to walk the streets. There was also an alarming number of Harry & Meghan life-size cutouts everywhere. The hype for this thing was real!


After making our way through Windsor (which is a beautiful little town in its own right), we were lucky enough to still find a good spot on the lawn. This large grassy area (called the long walk) was along the route of the carriage processional that happened after the wedding was over. When staking out our spot we didn't even realize that this was also the route that Meghan and her mother would be arriving by. Her car whizzed by at about 11:55 for the 12 o'clock wedding.



During the wedding, we were able to follow along by watching large screens which had been placed around the lawn. The screen closest to us was angled a bit weird, so it didn't make for great viewing, but we could still generally follow along.

One of my favorite parts of the day happened when famous guests to the wedding were showing up and being broadcast on the screens. Suddenly, everyone in the crowd started shrieking and clapping for someone on the screen. We stood up quickly, afraid we were missing something important, to realize the person who had generated this response was David Beckham. Well played, Becks.

After the wedding ceremony ended, the real excitement began. Harry and Meghan rode a horse and carriage through Windsor, greeting the thousands of people who had shown up to wish them well. We were so excited for this part, the whole reason we came!


This was pure adrenaline. Because we were close to the end of the carriage route, we heard the crowds reacting long before we saw the couple. Luckily, the horses were moving at a slow pace, so when Harry and Meghan did reach us we were able to see them for quite awhile before they moved on. 




I kid you not when I say it seems like they waved RIGHT AT US. I was screaming. Loudly. And jumping. And basically acting like how you'd think a girl with Prince Harry's face on her t-shirt would act under these circumstances. 


And then it was over! But I can honestly say that the whole trip was so fun, not just this day or this moment (although it happened to be my favorite part). Morgan and I had such a blast in the UK, and witnessing a bit of the royal wedding was the cherry on top.
Until next time! (aka George's wedding)



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