Diana (5 page)

To more well-wishers, the afternoon after Charles’s “stag night” before the wedding: “If [Charles] comes past, ask him why he’s looking so pale.”

Had Charles been a great help in the recent months? “Marvelous, oh, a tower of strength…. I had to say that because [he’s] sitting there.”

Overcome by the pressures of the impending “wedding of the century,” Diana, in tears, told her sister Jane: “All I want to do is marry Charles. I can’t face all this … look at everyone … I can’t go through with it.”

“I’ve asked for one hymn, ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country,’ which has always been my favorite since school days.” (The hymn was also played at her funeral.)

“We had a wedding rehearsal yesterday. Everybody was fighting. I got my heels stuck in some grating in the cathedral and everybody said, ‘Hurry up, Diana,’ and I said, ‘I can’t. I’m stuck.’”

“The night before the wedding, Diana told an interviewer she planned “to be tucked up in bed, I think, early night.” Charles blurted, “Not allowed to see me anyway the night before.” “We might quarrel,” Diana rejoined.

“[On the night before the wedding] all night people were sitting out on the steps singing ‘Rule Britannia’ and every kind of thing. It really was remarkable, and I found myself standing in the window with tears pouring down my face.”

On the wedding crowds: “It’s wonderful to see people’s enthusiastic reaction. A mass of smiling faces. It’s most rewarding and gives me a tremendous boost.”

On the steps of the cathedral, she asked, “Is he here yet?”

During her vows, she confused the order of Charles’s names (Charles Philip Arthur George), rather understandably: “I, Diana Frances, take thee, Philip Charles Arthur George …”

At the altar, Charles whispered to Diana, simply, “You look wonderful.” “Wonderful for you,” she replied.

“It was heaven, amazing, wonderful, though I was so nervous when I was walking up the aisle that I swore my knees would knock and make a noise.”

“After all this fuss [of the wedding], I am sure we will live happily ever after.”

Diana termed the early 1980s “my early fairy period.”