Here is a thread dedicated to what happens behind the scenes. Anecdotes, jokes, trivial facts, funny pictures... if you have them, post them here.

I will start with a couple of anecdotes from British Coronations, to get the thread going (taken from various internet sources, so if they are not truthful at least they should make us smile).

** The date of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation (June 2, 1953) was selected after extensive consultation with British meteorologists, who determined that June 2nd was the most consistently sunny day in the calendar. Needless to say, it rained.

** "Ladies, however practical, can have peculiar ideas of rewards and prizes. At the Coronation of our present Majesty it was necessary, on account of the great number of Peeresses who were by right invited to the Coronation Ceremony, to erect an immensely dignified and comfortable convenience adjacent to the Abbey -- a sort of aristocratic lean-to.

"One of the first to use it was a well-known Marchioness who unfortunately, on entering had the misfortunne to knock her tiara against the lintel, precipitating it into the water closet. Unable to retrieve it by her own efforts and unwilling to appear before her new sovereign inadequately decorated, she was lucky enough to enlist one of the Gold Staff Officers who managed to retrieve it with the use of his ceremonial sword.

"Being a Marchioness, unaccustomed to carrying money, she rewarded her saviour with one of her Horlicks tablets with which she had equipped herself to sustain her throughout the long ceremonial which was to follow."




** Edward VII was asked, after his coronation what had most impressed him about the occasion. "It was", said the new king, "an incident which was not intended to be impressive, and that was the simultaneous movement of the peeresses in putting on their coronets," which he likened to "a scene from a beautiful ballet."