Bells ring and cannons fire. The horse-drawn coaches are polished. The engraved invitations are sent.
A Royal Wedding is about to take place.
England, London and Westminster Abbey are about to have a large influx of royalty, citizen watchers and media hit a few square miles of one of the largest cities in the world. Millions of photos will be taken and we will see hours of television news coverage.
Weddings have been occurring for centuries, but there is something about a royal wedding that piques our interests. England, Sweden, Denmark, Spain and several other nations have royal families, and all have royal weddings, but nobody does them better than England.
Here in America, we have White House weddings, which are also great social events. Then there are the rich and famous, movie stars and others who spend millions on lavish affairs that the media covers — only to have some of these marriages only last days.
Many of us know of or even remember some of these storybook weddings. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1840, King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, Princess (later Queen) Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten, Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier III of Monaco and, of course, Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer — just to name a few.
President Grover Cleveland was married in the White House, as was Woodrow Wilson.
One of the biggest events just after the turn of the 20th century was Alice Roosevelt's wedding, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy once said that he could rule the world or rule Alice but not both.
Some of us will remember the Johnson or Nixon's children's weddings at the White House. The last wedding involving a child of a sitting President was Jenna Bush, but she was married at Crawford, Texas by her choice.
I recall in 2001 on day after the inauguration, I was standing in a line to get into the White House. Vice President Dick Cheney's staff member and news commentator Mary Matalin was standing in front of me. Matalin told her accompanying child as we entered the East Room, that this is where she and father (James Carville) had their engagement party. Now not many of us can say that.
Royal or White House weddings aside, we all remember which wedding is the most important, our own.
Today, we share some images of some of these happy events for your viewing.
Share with us some of your photos of important events in Utah History or early photos that we might wish to share with the readers of the Deseret News at UtahHistoryPhotos@gmail.com.
Email: UtahHistoryPhotos@gmail.com