Excitement is building both in the UK and Australia for the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, which is to take place on May 19th. It follows on from the wedding in 2011 of Prince William and Kate Middleton, which at the time was the biggest Royal Wedding in history.
Statistics around the 2011 wedding released indicated record numbers tuned in on television and social media. 2 billion people around the world saw reports or photos about the big day which was covered by 8,000 journalists. Facebook calculated that 2.8 million people in Britain and America wrote status updates within 24 hours of the wedding starting while Twitter calculated that in the build-up to the service, users were tweeting 200 tweets every second about the wedding. 1,900 people were said to have attended the service in Westminster abbey, drawn from friends and relatives of Kate and William as well as foreign diplomats and guests from the Prince’s charities. In total, 5,000 police were in London to police the wedding and the surrounding areas of the city.
Although, not expected to be as big as the 2011 celebration, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding is expected to cost over £32 million pounds to organise, one of the top ten most expensive weddings of all time. A huge proportion of this will be on security which may cost up to £30 million and will include another fleet of 5,000 police to keep peace on the day in London. Harry and Meghan are planning to invite over 4,000 guests in multiple venues across their day.
It will a day a day of great happiness for the Royal Family and those associated with them but also will bring in a welcome boost for the British economy. Unlike after Prince William’s wedding, no bank holiday is planned, an event that can cost the economy up to £2 billion. While the big day is expected to bring in £1.5 billion across numerous sectors of the British economy. Tourism and PR will likely bring in the most money, expected to be up to £300 million each, while merchandise related to the day will earn over £50 million for merchandisers in the UK. Retail sales increased in 2011 for a short period and brought in over £500 million and the same is expected to happen once more.