The live stream has come to an end. Read our coverage of the royal wedding.
Friends, the moment is upon us: a smart and spirited American actress is joining the British Royal Family, and Prince Harry is growing up once and for all. Prince Harry of Wales, thirty-three, sixth in line to the British throne, and Meghan Markle, thirty-six, an alum of Northwestern University and also of “Suits,” are getting married, and newyorker.com will be live-streaming the entire thing. We’ll begin at 5 A.M. E.D.T. on Saturday, with the arrivals, a.k.a. the March of the Fascinators, and proceed to the ceremony and then to the triumphal carriage ride through Windsor. Cue the trumpets!
More from The New Yorker on the royal wedding.
If you, like me, have recently studied up on this couple, you might have learned some intriguing details. At the age of eleven, Markle was a powerhouse advocate of non-sexist dish-soap ads; she is now interested in destigmatizing menstrual-hygiene management in developing countries and in bringing clean water to thousands of people in Rwanda. Harry, who matured past several wild and ill-advised moments in his twenties, was helped by therapy and his time in the military. He also has a special love for Botswana and for wildlife conservation. (In Africa, he has said, “I feel more like myself than anywhere else in the world.”) He and Markle travelled to Botswana together early on, camping out under the stars, and her engagement ring includes a diamond from Botswana and two diamonds of Princess Diana’s, “to make sure that she’s with us on this crazy journey together,” Harry told the BBC. The crazy journey will begin not at Westminster Abbey, in London, as William and Kate’s and Charles and Diana’s did, but at Windsor Castle, in Windsor, at St. George’s Chapel—so cozy and intimate, no doubt, that we’ll feel like we’re there. The couple has invited more than twenty-five hundred members of the public to attend the arrivals and the carriage-viewing, in order to “share in the joy and the fun of the day.” Diana was known as the People’s Princess; now we have a People’s Wedding.
