The Queen travels in an open carriage on the way to Westminster Abbey for the wedding, 23 July, 1986
And what were you doing 40 years ago today?
It was a different era… I had just spent the night on the streets of London to see the Royal Wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. It was the biggest event of the summer and I was midway through a very full season of photographing the Royal Family.
The day before I’d photographed Princess Anne and her children at the Royal Tournament then raced over to see Princess Diana attend the Bolshoi Ballet in Covent Garden. Former Beatle Ringo Starr was also there, which was a fun bonus for me.
The atmosphere was electric the night before the wedding; every was in a party mood.
After that, I headed over to Whitehall to hold a front row spot for the wedding procession the next day. I don’t remember sleeping much that night. I was with a small group of friends and we passed the night talking and occasionally going on walks down the processional route and seeing all the tens of thousands of people already lining the way.
Waiting for everything to begin on the morning of the 23rd.
The next morning the atmosphere was festive- and cold. It might’ve been July 23rd but it was definitely jacket weather. Eventually the whole Royal Family processed from Buckingham Palace down the Mall and past me on Whitehall to Westminster Abbey for the wedding, in Rolls Royces and horse drawn carriages- the Queen and Prince Philip, Charles and Diana, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, and a very young Prince William and his equally young cousins.
Charles and Diana waving to the crowds on their way to the Abbey.
Prince William
A couple hours later, they all returned along the same route back to the Palace, giving me a chance to get some good shots of the Royals in open carriages. One of the best shots I ever got of Prince William was from that morning; he was having a great time riding in a carriage with his Uncle Prince Edward, feeding off the energy of the crowds and waving excitedly to everyone.
Today, Andrew and Sarah have disgraced the Royal Family and are non-entities. It’s a shame but also not surprising, given Andrew’s nickname back then was Randy Andy and he wasn’t exactly known for his high morals. It’s too bad; I have dozens of great shots of both Andrew and Sarah from the 1980’s but won’t be posting them here; it’s too embarrassing. But what a fun time it was for those two or three years I spent photographing the Royal Family. It shaped me as a photographer and those pictures are still the most popular of more than one million pictures I’ve taken since then.
