It’s one of the most famous events in royal history, and now the wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert is being brought to life once more. A new TV programme, presented by historian Lucy Worsley, will reconstruct the marriage that began years of happiness for a young couple and changed the idea of royal weddings forever.
Every aspect of the celebrations, represented at the time by formal portraits such as the famous one above by George Hayter, will be examined in the new show ”Victoria and Albert: the Wedding” with a spotlight shone on the clothes, food, flowers, music and politics that underpinned a day that became a milestone in royal history.
Dr Worsley has gathered a team of experts together who have studied original documents from newspapers to diaries to recreate every aspect of the events marking the marriage of Victoria and Albert on February 10th 1840.
From the royal wedding dress (the first major regal bridal gown in white for centuries) to the huge cake that made headlines all of its own, all the elements of the big day will be studied, explained and then recreated. The wedding ceremony itself, at St James’s Palace in London, will be followed with a reconstruction of the meal held afterwards at Buckingham Palace and the couple’s departure for their honeymoon.
It’s being billed as the most accurate representation of the wedding ever with all the elements of the celebrations recreated by hand. There will also be a spotlight on Victoria and Albert’s romance with an in-depth look at the union that began with the dynastic ambitions of the couple’s families and became one of the most famous royal romances of all time. And while we all enjoy the careful reconstruction of their wedding day, there’s also a chance to hear about how the marriage turned Victoria and Albert, then both just twenty years old, into one of the most powerful couples in Europe.
”Victoria and Albert: the Wedding” airs in the UK on BBC Two on December 21st and will be shown in the US on PBS on January 13th and 20th 2019.
