On July 30, 1981, Australia was abuzz with the news of the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.
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An article on the front page of The Canberra Times stated that 700 million people watched the marriage ceremony.
The article noted that Princess Diana was nervous during the ceremony: "In the age-old ceremony under St Paul's soaring dome, the nervous bride whispered her vow, but repeated her husband's name in the wrong order, promising to marry Philip Charles Arthur George."
The royal wedding went off without a security hitch and no arrests were made among the hundreds of thousands of people who watched the processions.
Elsewhere on the front page, columnist Ian Warden wrote that the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana was a morale boost for royalists.
"We will never be offered such anachronistic splendour by the earnest agnostic republicans who yearn to govern us," Mr Warden wrote.
"Republicans will have found it hard to suppress a scoff at the two millionaires' pledge to take one another 'for richer, for poorer'."
Yet despite the traditionalist rhetoric, this was poised to be a modern marriage. There were early signs that Princess Diana would not be an ordinary, quiet, royal. Evidenced from her refusal to make a vow to obey Prince Charles. This was agreed upon by the couple but was considered controversial by some.
The couple separated in 1992, and later divorced in 1996. Princess Diana died a year later, aged only 36, in a car accident while fleeing paparazzi.