Dressed like a princess

My Great Aunt Marjorie was an ardent royalist; if there was a tea-towel worthy event she had the tea towel and the biscuit tin, and possibly even the tea cup.  When she moved to a retirement home from her little house in Bungalowland, Bournemouth, among the things that she left were two massive binders of a 50 something part series of periodicals on every possible branch of the Royal family.  They came home with us and my sister and I spent hours pouring over every detail of the spreads of Diana's evening dresses ( many of which were lovingly recreated in pencil crayon for our paper dolls), or the Queen as a young mother, or working out exactly how the Dukes of Kent and Gloucester are related to the Queen and why Princess Michael is called Princess Michael.

It's left me with a random font of useless information about the Royal family and a deep affection for all things pomp and circumstance and so from the moment that I got up at Kitty o'clock this morning, the telly has been on to watch all the coverage on the beeb. It was a lovely day and a lovely wedding for a couple that seem truly committed to one another.

Just as H and I have no recollection of Charles and Diana's wedding (we were just 1), Kitty is unlikely to recall anything of today in her long term memory but that seems to be no reason why she shouldn't dress up and enjoy it.  And yes, that does mean that it's totally appropriate to eat breakfast in your pyjamas and tiara I'm sure that's what all the real princesses do ...



And after breakfast and before the ceremony started we whisked upstairs to put on our wedding finery.  I went all out and wore the pair of jeans that fits me and a shirt which at that stage of the day had yet to be blessed with smears of various partially masticated foods, and Kitty, well, Kitty stole the show:


Although her real name isn't Kitty (the fake name is for her privacy seeing as she isn't old enough to choose for herself) you knew it was only a matter of time before I found a good t-shirt with her pseudonym and what better occasion than a wedding.

When it was chilly she had a red cardie to put on over the top, and she has worn both blue and white and red and white stripy socks at intervals.  With the tiara to complete the look I think she's definitely a fashion hit!

I'm not sure what she made of the service but she loved all the horses in the parade, and as you can see it's a miracle any of the photos are in focus as she bounced around on Daddy's lap the whole time.



This afternoon we had a street party in my road and as I had Kitty in my arms I haven't got a single photo to show for it so I'm hoping the neighbours will send me theirs soon.  We attempted to transform Kitty's buggy into the 1902 Landau by adding a little Union Flag helium balloon to the front and swags of red ribbon along the sides and then Millie (age about 7) nipped home and lent us two pink my little ponies to tuck on the front so that it was horse drawn.

We had a BBQ, Bucks Fizz, sandwiches, party food and cake and then we all lined up for a group photo for posterity.  A lovely afternoon and a great celebration.