THE Dress

As promised, the post on THE DRESS.
The first day we were in London we made plans to go to Buckingham Palace, for the sole purpose of seeing THE Dress. That's really all I needed, but, in order to see the dress, you do the whole stateroom tour which only goes until the third of October, so, much like the Globe, our timing was perfect.
My dads travel sensei who suggested Oz to us had been in London over the summer and tickets were sold out in advance, so she never got to see the Palace or THE Dress, thus, I feel wildly superior and smug, considering she travels all.the.time.

Anyways. Buckingham Palace really is all that and a bag of chips. It's quite amazing to see all these places that have been depicted in movies, that you read about, that you see pictures of. It really is jaw droopingly beautiful. The tour takes about two or two and a half hours, again, I could have stayed all day.

Of course, there are no pictures inside the palace, but, we can all use our imagination, yes?

There was the Throne Room and the pictures of William and Kate from their wedding-- I'm telling you, that wedding has done wonders for the monarchy and for the economy! Hell, I wouldn't have cared much about the tour had it not been for THE DRESS.

(from here)
(and here)

Do you think Kate was all "Granny Liz, I want to get my wedding gown preserved, could you recommend someone?"

And then The Queen was all "Nonsense child, we shall display is in the palace-- after all, you did wear my tiara-- and you didn't want to keep those earrings did you? We shall display them in the ballroom and charge people to see it! It's a completely brilliant plan."

Or something like that? I like to think so.

Anyways, you walk into the ballroom and the dress, veil and tiara are there in the middle like a gorgeous beacon of lace and style and I stood there staring for a good ten minutes.
(from here)

There is also a video of Sarah Burton talking about the dress and showing how it was designed, and that was very interesting--I totally watched it ohhh, three times. You round a corner and there is a row of huge video screens playing clips from the wedding. I don't know what it was, but, that music from when she entered the abbey just gets me every time!

The dress really is stunning in person. It's just so perfect and lovely. And, homegirl is literally the size of my pinky finger-- the dress is so teensy!! My dad, who didn't know anything about the royal wedding and who later argued with me on it's location was actually rather impressed with the wedding spectacular at the palace-- after all, it's a piece of history.

After the tour we walked through the gardens and then we went over to the royal mews, which, for me was fun, hello, horses!


They had all the coaches there and the car that took Kate to the abbey and a few of her majesty's horses. Very cool. Also, those horses live better than I do. Not surprising.

The State Coach.
The car that took Kate to the Abbey!
And, the mews still function like a normal stable community with many people living and working there. Yes, hi, I live at Buckingham Palace. I die! But, I guess that falls in the territory of the Beefeaters living at The Tower. How did I miss all this on career day?

We had so much fun touring the Palace exploring all the royal nonsense!

That said, when can I go back?!