Students stay up for royal wedding
By Kurt Wagner
Last Friday's royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton occurred half a world away from Santa Clara, but that didn't stop students from enjoying the festivities on live television despite the alarming 3 a.m. start time.
"Everything went along so smoothly," said junior Shaina Daswani who stayed up to watch the coverage while studying for a midterm. "There didn't seem to be any problems, so it was perfect in my mind."
Daswani, who wants to be a wedding planner after graduation, said she felt obligated to watch the wedding ceremony having been abroad in London during the engagement in November.
"(I) understood a lot more just from having been there," she said.
With broadcasts streaming over 11 separate telecasts — including ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN — Daswani certainly wasn't the only American who set their alarm to catch the ceremony.
The Nielsen Co. said the 22.76 million viewers were spread out over 11 different networks. Websites reported high traffic, too. ABCNews.com said it's online traffic Friday was its highest since the 2008 presidential election. And, E! Online said its 23.6 million page views on Friday was its most ever.
Across the Atlantic, from tiny villages to big cities, hundreds of thousands of Britons celebrated the royal wedding with brass bands, baked goods and red, white and blue bunting at traditional neighborhood street parties.
There were 5,500 applications for street closures across the country, officials said, with residents taking over usually traffic-filled roads with long tables, picnic meals and festive banners.
Many towns and cities erected outdoor screens so people could watch the wedding ceremony in Westminster Abbey - and their kiss from a Buckingham Palace balcony a little later.
With rain holding off and sun breaking through the cloud in London, residents in several neighborhoods came out to mingle over cold drinks and home-baked treats.
Street parties on big royal occasions have been a British tradition for decades, from Prince Charles and Princess Diana's wedding in 1981 to Queen Elizabeth II's golden jubilee in 2002.
"It's very much a London thing," said actress Barbara Windsor, star of the quintessentially English "Carry On" comedy films and the "EastEnders" soap opera. "When the war was over we used to have street parties all the time for no reason."
Windsor was among more than 200 people attending a north London party where residents ate pizza and Indian food from long tables before listening to an Irish band and a string quartet.
Across town, about 100 charity workers and local children were invited to a party in Downing Street, home to Prime Minister David Cameron and his family. They were served egg sandwiches and red Jell-O from paper plates, soda in paper cups and tea poured from stainless steel teapots into white china cups.
A trio of singers performed an eclectic assortment of songs - including "California Dreaming" by the Mamas and the Papas and Radiohead's "Creep" - and the policeman on duty outside 10 Downing St. loaned children his bobby helmet while they posed for photos.
The prime minister, still dressed in the formal tailcoat he had worn to the wedding, dropped by to share details of ceremony,
"It was beautiful to see two people who really love each other and who are incredibly happy at an amazing ceremony," Cameron said.
Contact Kurt Wagner at jwagner@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4849. Jill Lawless of the Associated Press contributed to this report.