Royal wedding guest: 'I have to pinch myself'
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Charlie Mayhew is still pinching himself: Did he really just witness history? He did, as a guest inside Westminster Abbey for the Friday wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
Mayhew, 50, the founder and CEO of Tusk Trust, an African wildlife-and-human-life conservation charity patronized by William, was a guest with wife Caroline at the service, one of scores of representatives of William's charities invited to the wedding.
"What an incredible, almost surreal experience," he says. "I have to pinch myself - it wasn't a dream, it really was a royal wedding…The trumpet fanfare for the queen sent shivers up my spine. There were moments in the service when the hairs stood up on the back of my neck."
The Mayhews got primo seats, in the front row in the nave, near the abbey door and the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior on the floor. "When (the bride and her father) came past the tomb, they were right there, it was incredible," Mayhew says." Someone told us later that William and Catherine wanted to have a few familiar faces when they came in…William gave me a grin."
From their position they couldn't see the high altar far away in the cavernous church, but they watched the ceremony on large screens so they saw everything. Mayhew says he was struck by the beauty of the ceremony and the music, but most of all by the atmosphere the couple managed to create.
"From the moment we arrived, it wasn't what I expected - I thought it would be a formal state occasion, very regimented, but it was incredibly relaxed, informal and intimate. I don't know how they achieved it in this enormous (church)," he says.
Guests waited several hours in their seats before the ceremony started so there was plenty of time for milling around and socializing, "which was lovely."
"We were opposite Elton John, (David) Beckham and his wife (Victoria), were sitting behind us," he says. "Next to me was a young serviceman badly wounded in Afghanistan, his head burned and bandaged. He was cracking jokes. It was wonderful and so typical of William that he was included."
The Mayhews wish they could relive it again. "You're trying to soak it all up and remember everything," he says. "I thought the avenue of trees (down the aisle) was such a clever idea, I've never seen it done before and it was so simple and lovely and in a funny way it helped to create the degree of intimacy."
The atmosphere of a happy family occasion was fostered by the number (the majority of the 1,900 guests, palace officials said) of young people, friends of the couple, who were at the wedding, he says. "And William and Catherine, they were so clearly happy and deeply in love," he says.
Once it was over, Mayhew shot out of the abbey and headed for media interviews, back-to-back until 8:30 pm that evening. "The media center at Canada Gate (of Buckingham Palace) was an extraordinary set-up, the logistics were incredible," he said. "Walking around amongst (the crowd), so many people wanted to take photos with us because we were at the wedding."
He says Tusk Trust and Tusk USA and all the charities invited to the wedding have gotten a huge boost in their profiles as a result - a wonderful gift from William, he says.
All in all, he says, it was a day when he was "really proud to be British."
As for the British monarchy, the most famous in the world, the future is "looking very bright," he says. "With William and Catherine now in position, I think we have got a fantastic future. Together they are a great team."
See photos of: Royal Wedding
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