Weddings in Anguilla have always been a source of much interest among the citizenry, and today the island is being promoted as a wedding destination as part of the upmarket tourism industry.
It is partly because of this, and the world-wide interest in the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Mehgan Markle, that Four Seasons Resort and Residences Anguilla held a special event on Saturday, May 19, to mark the occasion. It gave Anguillians and visitors an opportunity to view the event on several large television screens at what was called “a Royal Wedding Brunch”.
Four Seasons Director of Public Relations and Communications, Ms. Suzanne Willis, put the event in perspective as the guests arrived. “We are all set for the Royal Wedding. We have a breakfast spread which includes all of the English favourites,” she said. “We have English tea sandwiches, curry egg salad, crab salad and other delicacies. But we are here to watch the Royal Wedding and to mark this historic moment. Because it is such a historic occasion, our guests will always remember where they were; and we wanted them and our locals to mark this momentous occasion at Four Seasons – and it is just such an exciting time.”
Ms. Willis continued: “Most of our guests are Americans and because Prince Harry is marrying an American, it makes it more exciting for the Americans this time because it is royalty; and of course we love this Anguilla British territory.
“We opened invitations to the entire island and we wanted many of them as guests. But we cut the reservations when we had fifty locals because we had to take care of our hotel guests, and save room for them to have breakfast here because this is our only restaurant for breakfast. We hated to disappoint our locals but we also cannot disappoint our guests so it was a fine line – and I wish we had known exactly how many of our hotel guests were going to come. We are really sorry to disappoint anybody.”
Many of the Anguillian guests in attendance either lived and worked in England or were born there. Others included those who felt it was an opportunity for them to experience.
A number of persons participated in an English hat competition three of whom were selected. The winner was Mrs. Gracita Christopher of West End, Anguilla. The others were “Sandy Hill” a visitor from Ontario, Canada, and Tiffany Anderson of Washington, DC. There was also a Royal Etiquette Quiz which was won by Joe Brandon, a UK visitor.
