'I just love the whole fairy tale': Meghan marries Prince Harry, and Philly swoons
More than 60 gathered in fancy dresses and fascinator hats at Rittenhouse Square's Lacroix to sip champagne and Pimm's and gush over the new royal couple.
"I just love the whole fairy tale," said Anne Scardino, who went to the Rittenhouse Hotel to watch the royal nuptials with her friend Martha Gay, both of Center City, on a giant television at Lacroix restaurant.
More than 60 people, many of them women wearing hats with wide brims or fascinators, smaller headpieces adorned with feathers or beads, took in the much-anticipated marriage of an American actress to a royal in British style. They drank cups of Pimm's, a British gin-based spirit, and nibbled scones, petite strawberry cheesecakes, and tea sandwiches, including prosciutto with a dollop of onion jam.
The guests began arriving around 7 a.m. — just as the wedding ceremony began. Dapper Rittenhouse doormen with boxy hats hurried to shield them from the morning's rain with umbrellas and opened the lobby doors with a flourish.
"Oh my god, I'm just so excited about this wedding," Jennifer Sharpe gushed. "It's one of these rare weddings between a British royal and an American, and she is like becoming a princess, so that is just absolutely fascinating to me. Doesn't every little girl growing up dream of marrying a prince and being swept off your feet and being taken away to live in a castle? And it's all happening."
A royal purple carpet led guests into Lacroix's ticket-only breakfast, held in the hotel's Mary Cassatt Tea Room. An American flag and a British flag stood sentry at the double glass doors. A six-layer wedding cake had icing as snowy and cascading as Markle's wedding dress. The tables were set with silver-edged bone china. Servers came around with pots of English breakfast tea. Fascinators adorned with wisps of plum-colored and canary-yellow feathers far outdid the flower arrangements on the room's linen-clothed tables.
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The wedding watchers loved the pomp and circumstance and what some suggested was a salacious scandal of sorts — a British royal marrying an American divorcee.
During the ceremony, where an American pastor preached love, invoking the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., some at Lacroix got a kick out of Queen Elizabeth's, shall we say, characteristically staid expression.
The guests were fixated on the expressions of the queen and Prince Charles as the Most Rev. Michael Curry of Chicago, bishop of the Episcopal Church, gave a rousing, tent-revival-like sermon about the power of love.
"Oh, they are not used to this," a woman quipped loudly, referring to the royal family.
Gay joked that the queen's expression suggested she was thinking, " 'My God, someone from one of the colonies is going to marry my grandson.' As Queen Victoria used to say, 'I am not amused.' "
While the queen's expression may have seemed stony, her actions were one of genuine embrace. She bestowed a new title on the happy couple — the Duke and Duchess of Sussex — which royal experts on the Today show's wedding broadcast declared a most generous gesture.
"I believe that the royal family, specifically the two young men, realize that if this monarchy is going to continue, you've got to be inclusive," said guest Amy Collins, 58, from the New Hope area of Bucks County. "This is a sea change right here at Rittenhouse Square. We're seeing a sea change in, actually, the whole world. I think it's real and not staged."
Anna Black Morin, 35, treated her 65-year-old mother, Barbara Black, to the $100-a-person watch-party breakfast as a Mother's Day gift. Morin said she viewed the union between Prince Harry and Markle as a symbol of healing and unification in a divisive world.
"I think it spreads hope," said Morin, of Center City. "I think that this couple feels to me like a breath of fresh air."
She and her family own and run summer camps for children in the mountains of upstate Pennsylvania.
"So fairy tales are our business and this is an amazing fairy tale," said Black, who paired a $65 wide-brim hat purchased from Sophy Curson, a chic women's clothing store on 19th Street, with matching fuchsia-colored eyeglass frames.
Jessica James, 33, a pediatrician from Center City, won "best dressed" at the party. She wore a pink feathered fascinator and white lace gloves from England, purchased on Amazon. She paired them with a tea-length floral dress and sandals.
"I knew that I wanted to bring a level of gravitas to the event, even from Philadelphia," she said.
She won a blue fascinator from Hats in the Belfry.
"I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to wear it," James said.