The BBC man kept saying 'this is unlike any other royal wedding there has ever been,' but that was almost the opposite of what struck me, namely, how similar Harry and Meghan's wedding was to every other wedding that takes place in the Church of England, and that's what I liked best about it.
OK the guest list, the trumpeters, the horses and the location were something special, but the really important bits, the words, were the same, which is just as it should be.
And when it came to the vows (above) it was one man promising to one woman
for life, and then one woman making the same promises to one man
for life.
They used their Christian names at that point, not their titles, because they were two individuals making their promises to each other in the sight of God.
And the words they used, based on those ancient words of the English prayer book, deeply rooted in what the Bible means by 'love' and what the Bible means by 'marriage' are the words used by every couple:
I take you to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.
Unusually the sermon made no reference to marriage, but the vows preached their own sermon about the union of one man and one woman for life, according to God's wonderful plan.
So, may God bless Harry and Meghan, today and every day, and, here's some really good news: if you're not yet married you can have a wedding at St James, just like Harry & Meghan's, minus the royal bits, of course, but including all those wonderful words from the wedding service.
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