With news of Prince William and Kate Middleton's nuptials splashed across the world's front pages and saturating primetime TV in the US, Asia and Europe, anticipation of the event's commercial potential was climbing fast.
Britain's retail analysts, souvenir sellers and hotel owners were predicting a boost to business. Up to £620m could be injected into the UK economy, said Neil Saunders from retail researchers Verdict.
"It is a modest amount of good news for some retailers in these difficult times," said Richard Dodd of the British Retail Consortium. Suggestions that it would stimulate financial recovery were, however, ludicrous, he said.
At Clarence House, the prince and his bride-to-be spent the morning in discussions with royal household staff who will organise planning of the wedding.
Whether those talks gave any consideration to an offer by Sir Tom Jones to perform at the wedding remained unclear. "I've always been a royalist and I always will be," said the Welsh singer.
As speculation continued about the date, a palace spokesman said that an announcement about it and the venue would be made in due course, "after other members of the royal family, Mr and Mrs Middleton, and the government have been consulted". Prince William later went back to his RAF base in Wales, where he returns to work as a helicopter search and rescue pilot this morning.
Tom Bradby, ITV's political editor and the first journalist to interview the pair after the announcement, suggested their preferred date would be in the spring.
"I think they want to have it in March," he said. "Their people have now got to say: 'Right, who do we invite? Do we invite the Obamas? Do we invite the Sarkozys?'"
Bradby praised Middleton's performance in the interview. "I thought she did pretty well. She was very nervous," he said. "I think one of the things people have to understand is she's not a massive showboater."Some Australian commentators saw it as a blow to republican campaigners, while a headline in the Toronto Globe and Mail enthused: 'Kiss me, Kate: Rating Middleton's wardrobe'. Italy's La Stampa called William's fiancee "the Cinderella of Bucklebury" – a reference to her home village in Berkshire.
A video surfaced on YouTube that purportedly shows Middleton as a 13-year-old performing in a school play where a fortune teller declares that she will meet a handsome, rich gentleman who will take her to London. By coincidence, the character she marries is called William.
William Hill declared Westminster Abbey the favourite venue with odds of 8-11, followed by evens for St Paul's Cathedral and 6-1 for St Clement Danes, the RAF's main church. The O2 Arena and Wembley Stadium are at 1,000-1.Punters suspect July will be the most likely date. Other firms are setting odds on who will design the wedding dress. Ladbrokes is taking bets on whether more people will tune in to watch than the 32.2 million people who saw the 1966 World Cup final or the 28.4 million who saw Charles and Diana's wedding.
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