Magic in the Daylight

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Look at London, a city dressed like a vast stage, buses painted with bows, and parks blooming with Charles' royal crest outlined in precisely planted blossoms, 4,500 pots of flowers lining the wedding route. Remember all the designers working in secrecy: the milliners blocking straw and trimming it with quills; Dress Designers David and Elizabeth Emanuel, holed up in their Mayfair workshop like a couple of atomic scientists, working on Lady Diana's wedding gown, plus two or three backup designs in case of a breach in security; the Worshipful Company of Gardeners, one of London's ancient guilds (founded in 1345, thank you), which was given the task of assigning one of its members to concoct the wedding bouquet. Think about Major Julien T. Kenwood, 36, of the Mounted Military Police, who, along with four other mounted officers, will lead Lady Diana in her Glass Coach from Clarence House to St. Paul's, and who admits that the whole thing "is a fairly daunting prospect. It would be wrong to say we're not feeling the old butterflies." Or about Designer Bruce Oldfield, turning out dresses for several prominent guests, who dithers: "It's a nightmare. It's great. It's fantastic." Or Kiri Te Kanawa, who says simply that she is "terrified." The frantic pace, the giddy nerves, the spiraling expectation that threatens to run away and never quite does: all of it comes down to one thing. It is an understandable preopening stage fright for what will be, for one day and one day only, the greatest show on earth.

Like all great extravaganzas, the royal wedding requires a producer (the Lord Chamberlain) and a director (Lieut. Colonel John F.D. Johnston, who recently received a knighthood for his organizational skills). It also, of course, has a supporting cast of thousands. Along with the home-grown aristocrats, there are all the invited guests: political (Nancy Reagan); monarchical (Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands, the King and Queen of Sweden, the Duke and Duchess of Liechtenstein); social (Sabrina Guinness, Sir Hugh Casson); and sentimental (Flo Moore, who kept Charles' Cambridge rooms in order; Henry and Cora Sands, who provided Charles with some homemade bread during holidays in Eleuthera; Patrick and Nancy Robertson, an American couple whose son Lady Diana played nanny to in 1979 and 1980). Inevitably there are also a few conspicuous by their absence, like King Juan Carlos of Spain, who was miffed that the Prince and Princess of Wales chose to embark on their honeymoon cruise from Gibraltar, a British colony that the Spanish consider their own.

But these are cameos; faces in the crowd. The supporting roles—the backbone of the British repertory system, and one of the many small glories of the British cinema—give flesh, size and human dimension to the sometimes overwhelming scale of the spectacle. Among them: