DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, April 24th 2011, 4:00 AM
When Prince William and Kate Middleton tie the knot, they will be history in the making
Once upon a time, the fairy tale weddings of Britain's princes and princesses were celebrated without streaming video and satellite radio, live TV and Twitter.
Given the media madness surrounding Prince William's impending marriage to Kate Middleton, it's a quaint scenario that's hard to imagine.
Yet it wasn't until after World War I that the royal family's trips down the aisle became an international obsession.
Even back then, there was a certain sense of English decorum: The archbishop of Canterbury turned thumbs-down on radio coverage of Prince Albert's 1923 wedding.
The prelate was worried men would listen to the wedding in pubs — while wearing their hats.
The last royal wedding to generate this kind of attention came in 1981, with the ultimately doomed union of Prince William's parents, Diana Spencer and Prince Charles.
Diana's wedding dress of ivory taffeta and antique lace, covered in 10,000 pearls and sequins and boasting a 25-foot train, became the most copied gown in history.
Their vows were exchanged on live television, and beamed around the world — both royal wedding firsts. The global audience was pegged at a staggering 750 million.
Prince William's parents, Princess Diana and Prince Charles, wed to a global audience of 750 million. (AP)
The pair wed at the London landmark St. Paul's Cathedral, a place William and Kate opted to avoid given the marriage's disastrous history.
Instead, they chose Westminster Abbey, where several other members of the prince's family have exchanged vows. The queen's sister, Princess Margaret, walked down the aisle there in 1960.
His aunt, Princess Anne, did the same in 1973. His uncle, Prince Andrew, wed Sarah Ferguson in the abbey in 1986.
Each of those marriages ended in divorce, but there's some positive news in the family's marital past at Westminster: William's paternal grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, was married there, as was her mother.
William's private secretary, Jamie Lowell-Pinkerton, said Westminster got the nod because of "its staggering beauty, its 1,000 years of royal history and its relative intimacy despite its size."
William also has a Westminster history: His mother's September 1997 funeral was held there, with the then-15-year-old prince walking behind her casket.
Of course, royal marriages generated attention before the electronic age. Back in 1840, when Prince Albert became engaged to Queen Victoria, every church bell in London rang out.
The 1947 marriage of Queen Elizabeth II to Prince Philip was another landmark event, raising the bar for royal weddings.
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