Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will leave St George’s chapel at Windsor Castle as newlyweds to the sound of a gospel choir performing Etta James’s version of Amen/This Little Light of Mine, a favourite in African American churches.
Kensington Palace has revealed details of the marriage ceremony, which puts a modern spin on traditional royal weddings. Markle will not promise to obey her husband, and Prince Harry will wear a wedding ring. Most male royals do not wear wedding rings. The Prince of Wales does; the Duke of Cambridge does not. The service will use words from the 2000 marriage service from Common Worship, which features contemporary language such as “you” instead of “thee” or “thou”.
Music before the ceremony includes Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on Greensleeves and Edward Elgar’s Chanson de Matin. The 600 guests inside the 15th-century chapel, including the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, will sing Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer, a hymn associated with the Welsh rugby team, of which Prince Harry is a fan.
As well as the James number, Karen Gibson and the Kingdom Choir will perform the soul classic Stand By Me by Ben E King. Other music includes the English baroque composer William Boyce’s Symphony No 1 in B flat. In keeping with royal wedding tradition, the UK’s national anthem will be played at the end.
While Markle’s father, Thomas Markle, said two days prior to the event that he was unable to attend because of ill health, the order of service still makes reference to him escorting his daughter through the Quire, since there was insufficient time to reprint 600 copies of the 20-page A4 document. Markle’s soon-to-be father-in-law, Prince Charles, will walk her up the aisle.
The late Princess Diana’s sister, Lady Jane Fellowes, will deliver a reading from the Song of Solomon, which stresses the strength and power of love. The couple wanted the family of the prince’s late mother to play a role in proceedings.
Kensington Palace said the couple had thought carefully about the music, hymns and other parts of the ceremony, and had asked Prince Charles to advise on the selection of orchestral music that plays before the service.
“Like any couple getting married, Prince Harry and Ms Markle have taken a great deal of care in selecting all elements for their service,” the palace said. “This has been a collaborative effort led by Prince Harry and Ms Markle.”
‘Undercuts the pomp and circumstance’: the Guardian’s music critic comments
Perhaps it says something about how staid and conservative the musical choices at royal weddings tend to be that Prince Harry and Megan Markle’s choice of two pieces of music with a collective age of 104 counts as racy and daring.
While Prince William and Kate Middleton stuck strictly to classical music and hymns – Jerusalem, Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer, work by Parry, Walton, Bach, Delius and Britten – William’s younger brother and his fiancee have broken with tradition. Ben E King’s 1960 hit Stand By Me, is, like Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight or Elton John’s Your Song, the kind of music ordinary people have played at their weddings: a lushly romantic R&B ballad on which the former Drifters vocalist pledges endless devotion to his inamorata.
But the choice of a gospel choir singing a medley of Amen and This Little Light of Mine – which according to some news reports, the couple know from Etta James’s 1982 album The Heart and Soul of Etta James – is more striking, precisely because it’s a gospel song. The music of African American churches is not something one ordinarily hears at royal weddings, and it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that that may have had some bearing on their decision to choose it. Like the Ben E King track, it sends out a signal that slightly undercuts the pomp and circumstance associated with the event: we are not a standard royal couple, and we’re more like you than you think. Alexis Petridis
