31 years ago today - Chuck and Di make it legal
CBS Sunday morning ran a brief piece this morning about the wedding of Charles and Diana, which happened 31 years ago today, on July 29th, 1981.
I was 15 years old when they got married. The perfect age to be susceptible to the fairy tale story of the first commoner to marry an English prince. (Yes, she’s aristocracy, which isn't actually common at all. But at the time it was not a distinction that anyone really cared about.)
Unfortunately, the wedding was scheduled for the week that we were on vacation at the beach. And the rooms we rented at Pawley’s Island didn’t have a television. My sister offered to bring her small portable black and white TV so that we could watch the wedding. But my mother absolutely forbade it. She claimed that having a television would ruin our vacation. I have never quite forgiven her for that. When we got home from vacation I bought every magazine I could that had wedding coverage, but it wasn’t the same thing as watching it live. I’ve had a lifelong interest in the British royal family. Books about various members of the royal family take up an entire shelf in the biography section of my library. After Diana died I bought every tribute book that showed up on the remainder section of the bookstore. I was up at 5 a.m. to watch her funeral live on the BBC. I was up early again last year to watch her first born, William, marry Kate Middleton.
The irony? Every house we’ve rented since Hurricane Hugo in 1989 has had a television set, sometimes more than one. And mom and dad are much more likely to flip on the TV in the evenings than I am. So mom’s violent opposition to television at the beach? It appears to only apply to once in a lifetime, worldwide events that her children desperately want to watch.
I was 15 years old when they got married. The perfect age to be susceptible to the fairy tale story of the first commoner to marry an English prince. (Yes, she’s aristocracy, which isn't actually common at all. But at the time it was not a distinction that anyone really cared about.)
Unfortunately, the wedding was scheduled for the week that we were on vacation at the beach. And the rooms we rented at Pawley’s Island didn’t have a television. My sister offered to bring her small portable black and white TV so that we could watch the wedding. But my mother absolutely forbade it. She claimed that having a television would ruin our vacation. I have never quite forgiven her for that. When we got home from vacation I bought every magazine I could that had wedding coverage, but it wasn’t the same thing as watching it live. I’ve had a lifelong interest in the British royal family. Books about various members of the royal family take up an entire shelf in the biography section of my library. After Diana died I bought every tribute book that showed up on the remainder section of the bookstore. I was up at 5 a.m. to watch her funeral live on the BBC. I was up early again last year to watch her first born, William, marry Kate Middleton.
The irony? Every house we’ve rented since Hurricane Hugo in 1989 has had a television set, sometimes more than one. And mom and dad are much more likely to flip on the TV in the evenings than I am. So mom’s violent opposition to television at the beach? It appears to only apply to once in a lifetime, worldwide events that her children desperately want to watch.