Let’s get the unpatriotic element out of the way first – I did not watch the Royal Wedding on Friday; in fact to be completely honest I arranged a round of golf* on the day purposely to avoid watching it. The reason I did this is not because I am an anti-royalist but because the level, amount and type of coverage was slightly nauseating (although 24m in the UK and 2bn across the globe disagree with me).
I did, however, watch the edited version on the news that evening – almost a Match of the Day style segment, with the best and worst bits shown. Having seen this and chatted to numerous colleagues, friends and family it is clear that it was a fantastic day and probably the most ‘normal’ Royal Wedding in history.
Being a member of the Royal Family on days such as this must be a real challenge. The amount of focus on all individuals involved leaves no room for error or mistake from any, which I guess is why they had the reception behind closed doors, i.e. no press or public eyes! The press in the UK may disagree with me but the lack of privacy those in the public eye receive today is a disgrace; I appreciate we have a right to know when something major is happening but there is no need for us to know half of what the press (particular the tabloids / rag mags – Heat I am talking about you) tell us. Despite it being the happiest day of their lives I am sure that if Kate Middleton had worn a dress that looked awful the press would have been blunt in the extreme when telling us. Rant over
Anyway, onto the main point of this blog...the Royal Wedding as an event. Watching the news and reading the papers the next day through the eyes of an event organiser I was greatly impressed and a tad inspired by the clockwork precision with which the day was organised. A wedding is never an easy event to organise (hence most wedding planners are crazy – in a good way, usually) but on this sort of scale both in terms of guests and public interest the phrase ‘a hard event to organise’ doesn’t really do it justice.
Just a quick glance at the numbers involved emphasises what a monumentally tough event it was to organise. Those involved in the planning of this ‘event’ didn’t just need to consider all elements directly linked but also all those external elements, i.e. the 1million people lining the wedding parade route and media interest (more than 8,000 were in London covering the wedding). According to the statistics there were 5,000 police and 130 street cleaners on duty in central London, 5,500 requests for road closures (for street parties) across the UK and 10,000 canapes served at the lunch reception. Mind boggling numbers – can you imagine the catering bill?! Clearly the lack of need for a budget greatly helped the Royal Wedding (emphasised by the estimated cost of policing, preparation and cleaning up being £10m)!
All involved at Connect Events would love to have a budget even 10% of that figure...as I am sure many other organisers would! Regardless of the cost though the day appears to have been a great success both in terms of a wedding and an event, which at the end of the day is all that matters. The UK does do this type of day better than any other country in the world. Be it an occasion to celebrate or commiserate the British Public take the event in question to their hearts and turn out in their millions to show their support, which of course adds to the difficulty of organising such an event. However seeing the public turn up in their droves to support events that are important to our country is a great site to see and it is for that reason that I do have a tinge of regret over playing golf rather than watching the spectacle that was the Royal Wedding.
* For those interested my brother and I won 3 & 2 in the golf so the day wasn’t completely wasted...
http://www.connectevents.co.uk/
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