Thursday, April 28, 2011

Royal Wedding Fever

The Big Day is tomorrow, and while it sounds like the Royal Wedding is actually getting more hype back in the US than it is here, there's certainly no lack of celebratory ballyhoo here in London.  Many streets, shops, pubs, and even homes are festooned with bunting and British flags.
Portabello Road
Regent Street
House in Kensington
And many stores have created special window displays capitalizing on the Royal Wedding:
Kipling
Engagement rings at a jewelry store
Bookstore
Cheesy souvenir shop
Accessorize store
It's also popped up in lots of advertising, like this local ad for Merton fitness centers.  (The small print explains that the "Kate" they are referring to is someone named Kate Merrydew, who joined the gym.)
Supermarket ad
Pixar!
Papa John's
I heard that Harrod's had gone all out with their window displays, so I hopped on the tube this afternoon to check it out.  It did not disappoint!
Harrod's
It was hard to get good photos because of the crowds and the glare on the windows, but here are the ones that turned out best.  They had a series of wedding cakes sponsored by various high-end designers, and smaller windows commemorating past royal weddings.  Here are some of the cakes, which were spectacular:











A few other windows had mannequins in wedding gowns, elaborately set tables, huge floral arrangements, and photos of the happy couple:

On the way home, I picked up the Evening Standard at the tube station, which of course had many, many articles related to tomorrow's events:
Front page
Royal Wedding Guide
We haven't decided if we're going to try to attend one of the many big viewing parties around London, watch at the local pub, or just hunker down in our apartment, but we'll definitely be watching, one way or another.  It's kind of like the Super Bowl.  Even if you don't care about the teams playing -- or even about football -- you still HAVE to watch it.

1 comment:

  1. I can't get over those cakes! You spent a lot of time putting the images for this post together, thanks for sharing. I'm not really into the royal wedding - but it's a nice distraction from all the AL/MS tornado damage images/news on the internet right now. Curious if you felt differently seeing the wedding in 'your' country....

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