Canadians gather in churches, theatres, halls for Royal Wedding viewing parties
BRENTWOOD BAY, B.C. — Donna Otto hasn’t decided on wearing a fascinator or a new hat on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding day, but she knows where she’ll be at 4 a.m. on Saturday when the royal couple say their ‘I dos.’
Otto, like most Canadians is thousands of kilometres and many time zones away from the ceremony at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, but she says she’ll be up early in Victoria to toast the newlyweds.
Theatres, cathedrals, libraries, hotels and banquet halls across Canada are booked for morning wedding celebration parties, with the hearty souls on the West Coast rising before dawn for the noon-hour ceremony in Great Britain.
“I’m going to enjoy every bit of it,” says Otto, a member of the Royal Commonwealth Society’s Vancouver Island branch. “Embrace it. My dress is a work in progress. I’m sure I’ll have either a fascinator or I’m seriously thinking of getting a brand new hat.”