The Wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten
In 2017, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland celebrated the Platinum Wedding anniversary of their queen, Elizabeth II, and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. That year the Queen the first British Monarch to celebrate 70 years of marriage.
The Queen, then Princess Elizabeth, and the Duke, then simply Philip, met in 1934 at the royal wedding of the Duke of Kent. After another meeting in 1939, Elizabeth in love with Philip and could not stop thinking about him. she was only 13 years old, they began to exchange letters. Their love survived the Second World War and 9 July, 1947, it was officially announced that they were going to get married. Just four months later the wedding took at Westminster Abbey. Princess Elizabeth was member of the Royal Family to be married there. What a historic place!
Two thousand guests the ceremony. The couple received around 10,000 telegrams of congratulations and 2,500 wedding presents. British women were about Princess Elizabeth’s silk wedding dress. Luckily they could see and the Duke of Edinburgh’s uniform on display at St James’s Palace after the wedding. The jewellery that Princess Elizabeth wore was special, too. It two pearl necklaces and a tiara. The bride’s bouquet of flowers was also extraordinary. Princess Elizabeth carried white orchids and a traditional wedding plant called myrtle. It is a symbol of good luck and love in marriage and it is tradition for royal brides to carry it. This tradition by Queen Victoria in 1840. Her groom’s grandmother wanted Victoria something special so she sent her the plant.
Philip Mountbatten, the groom, was a former Greek and Danish prince. However, he give up these titles in order to marry Princess Elizabeth. Her father, King George VI, made Philip Duke of Edinburgh on the morning of the wedding. When the Duke of Edinburgh died in 2021, he and the Queen had been married for 73 years.