Entertainment
Prince Charles Helped Prince Harry & Meghan With This Major Royal Wedding Detail
Apparently, the Prince of Wales moonlights as a wedding planner in his spare time. Prince Charles helped Meghan Markle plan her wedding to Prince Harry. Actually, he assisted with one key royal wedding detail that made the ceremony all the more amazing. According to People, in the "A Royal Wedding: The Duke and Duchess" exhibition at Windsor Castle, Markle talks about her wedding via a personal audio recording. The exhibit also has Markle's wedding dress and Harry's uniform on display for the public.
As Markle says during the audio guide,
"We worked quite a lot with the Prince of Wales, who has incredible taste in specifically classical music, so it was really fun to spend some time going through selections with him."
It's all thanks to Charles, and his "incredible taste, that director Karen Gibson and The Kingdom Choir sang their beautiful rendition of "Stand by Me" at the wedding. Someone on Charles' team helped organize a meeting between the royal couple and the choir. Without Charles, who knows if the choir would have ever been hired to perform on Markle and Harry's special day.
Regarding Ben E. King's hit song, Markle also reveals in her exhibit recording, "There was a song that was very meaningful to us, 'Stand By Me,' but we wanted a gospel rendition of it for it to really have a lot of soul."
As soon as The Kingdom Choir began singing on May 19, those watching the royal wedding live were immediately overcome with emotion. The choir is extremely talented and after their performance at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, the group even scored a record deal. As reported by CBS News in July, the week after the wedding, their version of "Stand By Me" became No. 1 on the Billboard Gospel Chart and had been viewed over 10 million times on YouTube.
"I do feel that my life is completely different to, say, two, three months ago. Completely," Gibson told CBS News. She added, "That's nice. I'll tell you why it's nice. Not because, you know, people know who I am. Because they rarely know my name. But because you can see from their responses, you can see from the look in their eye, that actually they're being so sincere, you know, when they say, 'Thank you.'"
As for the song Markle walked down the aisle to, George Frideric Handel's "Eternal Source of Light Divine" that was performed by Welsh soprano Elin Manahan Thomas, it's just as meaningful to the couple as "Stand By Me." However, Charles didn't choose the song, Harry did, People reported in October.
"[It] was Harry’s choice entirely and I think a really beautiful piece," Meghan says in the exhibit's audio tour. "I can retrace that entire walk down the aisle listening to it. It really is so special to us, and I think it’s one of those things we’ll treasure forever."
Harry also speaks about the song in his own exhibit recording, in which he sweetly says, "Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, we can close our eyes, listen to that music and take ourselves straight back to that moment, it’s a beautiful thing for both of us."
It's probably safe to say that both Harry and Charles have "incredible taste" in music. Thanks to their musical selections, Markle and Harry's wedding day was made even more unforgettable.