What time will Prince William & Kate’s wedding be on April 29th?

The bigs wedding party in this years are between Prince William & Kate’s and will be on April 29th 2011, it will show live streaming on youtube channel. For time broadcast television should be plenty of information about the broadcast in the days immediately leading up to the event. Check newspapers and online news sites.

If you are in the US, you will need to get up very early to catch the pre-wedding broadcast. The ceremony will be taking place at 11 am UK time, and the East Coast of the US is 5 hours behind the UK. The difference increases as you move west.

The service begins at 11 am UK time. (A morning wedding might sound strange but English law used to be that weddings had to take place between 9 am and 12 noon, and the Royal Family stick to the old tradition of a morning wedding and a wedding breakfast afterwards. The law now states it has to be between 9 am and 6 pm. Just for completeness, it also has to take place by law in a Church of England church or other registered building (those are mostly churches of other denominations or civil register offices) with open doors so anyone can witness it. Thus outdoor weddings and completely private weddings are forbidden in the UK.)

For Americans, that’s 3 am Pacific time, 6 am Eastern time, I’m sure the rest can work it out from there. The Church of England service being what it is, it won’t last more than an hour especially as there will be no communion – this is very rare at a C of E wedding. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the “liberal catholic” kind of Anglican so I doubt his sermon will be a long one, maybe 10 minutes at most. If it follows the pattern of Prince Charles and Diana’s wedding, there will be only two hymns plus the National Anthem, though the thing that can take an indeterminate time is the signing of the marriage register at the end. The wedding party all have to go off and do that and meanwhile the congregation have to be kept occupied – at Charles and Diana’s wedding, they had Kiri Te Kanawa singing some operatic solos.

Of course if you want to see the processions to the Abbey, you’ll have to start watching earlier. The journey from Buckingham Palace or St James’s Palace to Westminster Abbey isn’t a long one – I’ve walked it many times and I recommend doing that to any tourist in London as you get to see so many sights in a short space of time – but they will be going slowly and on the way back, Prince William and the new Princess William will be in a horse-drawn landau so obviously going at horse walking speed.

Edit – Nicchi has her opinion but I have no doubt the streets will be packed with people watching the processions go by. This always happens for every royal event. A good practical reason for making the day a public holiday (which it will be in the UK) is that it reduces pressure on public transport as so many central London office workers won’t need to go to work. That’s important – on a normal working day, the London Underground is packed during the rush hour and it’s a real achievement to get a seat. Add to that the people who want to be there for the wedding and it would be impossible.