Rehearsing a Rpyal Wedding.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 February 1922, Page 4

Rehearsing a Rpyal Wedding.

(By One Who Will bo Present)

So far as Westminster Abbey is concerned the precedents for a royal wedding are practically nil, lor no such ceremony was witnessed by this historic fabric between the years 1269 and 1919.

Moreover, the popular event which distinguished the early months of thb Hitler year—the wedding of Princess Patricia of Connaught and Commander Ramsay—took place barely three months after the Armistice—when war conditions were still very largely prevailing—a state of things which inevitably found its reflection to some extent in the general setting of the ceremony.

At the time of a Coronation tide Abbey is turned upside down. The regular services are suspended for a period extending over many months. So numerous are the pleople who must receive the honour of an invitation as well as those who would like to he thus distinguished, that it is necessary to make use of every single squarfe inch of space, and thus double, or nearly double, the capacity of a building which, without all those additional galleries and so forth, would not neconimodate very more than .‘I,OOO persons all told.

Any such elaborate process if expansion is clearly out of the question so far as the forthcoming royal wadding is concerned, if only for lack of time. It may lie taken for granted, however, that tin? entire building will he requisitioned, from the high altar to the west door, including that lofty point of vantage, tlile triforium. At the wedding of Commander Ramsay and Princess Patricia the various royal personages present were placed within the space known usually as the sacrarium—a precedent which presumably will be followed on future similar occasions.

At the Coronation the choir is drawn usually from all parts of England, the singers being accommodated in great galleries in the north and south choir aisles. By this means a chorus of something likfe 400 persons can he accommodated, and indeed they are

needed, every one of them, for the resonance of the Abbey is inevitably impaired to a very considerable extent, owing to the vast additional quantity of woodwork and other furniture placed therein. Considerations of space, however, will rule out any such enormous body of singers next month. On the other hand the Abbey choir is always reinforc'd at the distribution of the Royal Maundy and on not a lew other royal occasions by the Chapel Royal choir. No doubt they will he available on this occasion also.

Rehearsals, too, of a number of the persons concerned in tlv.' actual ceremony are necessary, otherwise some fiasco is almost bound to ensue. It is . office It to realise that this Coronation of Queen Victoria took place without any such rehearsal, according to a note ' ft by the Rev Lord John Thynne, upon whom, as Sub-Dean of the Abbey at the tin\e, there devolved a considerable measure of responsibility.

At the Coronation of King Edward VII and King George V rehearsal simply followed reeharsal, and it was abundantly clear to all parties concerned that there were none too many.