Any party planner or diplomatic official would agree that hosting
visits from the pope and the president and hosting a royal wedding
within the past nine month warrants a vacation.
It’s time to kick back, head out of town, maybe sip a margarita,
catch up with friends and perhaps spend an afternoon visiting museums.
That is exactly what the Very Rev. Dr. John R. Hall, the dean of Westminster, is doing in New York City this week.
Well, that’s partly what he is doing.
As a leader of the Church of
England, one of the world’s most prominent denominations, who oversaw
the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Dean Hall also
attended graduation ceremonies for the St. Thomas Choir School in Manhattan and preached at its church.
He also has been meeting with Bank of America officials and
foundations about partnering with arts institutions in the United States
to arrange for traveling exhibitions of some of Westminster Abbey’s holdings.
On Tuesday morning, Dean Hall sat in the garden of the Palace Hotel
with his shoes sharply shined and reminisced about all things royal
wedding related.
He laughed about misinformed news reports saying he
would tweet during the actual ceremony.
“I said to the couple, ‘Everyone will be absolutely with you,’ ” Dean Hall said.
The abbey had just a few months to plan the royal wedding. Shortly
after the engagement was announced, Dean Hall received a call from Miss
Middleton.
He said that she was “very friendly” and that he heard a few days
later that the couple wanted to be married in Westminster Abbey.
Dean Hall did not handle their premarital counseling, since the royal
couple had three officiants at their ceremony. He said there were
weekly meetings coordinated with St. James’s Palace to discuss details
as diverse as protocol and making sure that when the BBC filmed the
ceremony, no workers “screw equipment into a precious piece of
13th-century wall.”
He said he was surprised at how involved the royal couple were in the
details of the ceremony and how carefully they rehearsed each step so
that they would not make mistakes.
On the morning of the wedding on April 29, Dean Hall admitted to
having his own pre-wedding nerves and woke at 5:45 a.m. for prayers and a
hearty breakfast of porridge and bacon and eggs.
He tried to greet as many guests as he could, though one of them, as
circumstances would have it, was not Elton John.
He was also handling
his own wardrobe changes that morning when he slipped into more formal
ceremonial garb.
He was also on hand to calm the nerves of the royal
family members as they arrived.
“Everyone was feeling a little bit nervous,” Dean Hall said. “So I wanted to say something warm and encouraging.”
He dismissed any assumptions being made about the royal couple
showing any signs of Bridezilla-like behavior. He said throughout the
entire ceremony, the royal couple simply followed his directions.
“I think there’s a sort of modesty about them,” he said.
While the royal wedding was certainly a marquee event, Dean Hall has
also been busy with other major events at Westminster Abbey.
In September 2010, he hosted Pope Benedict XVI’s visit. And just
before the royal wedding, he oversaw Holy Week festivities, a televised
visit and ceremony with Queen Elizabeth and a ceremony for 2,000
Australians and New Zealanders.
“Life was going on in its normal high octane fashion,” Dean Hall said.
Last month, Dean Hall hosted a tour of Westminster Abbey by
President Obama and Michelle Obama. That is when the president
mistakenly signed the date for his visit as 2008.
But Dean Hall was more
impressed with how Mr. Obama conferred with him about how to spell the
word commemoration.
Dean Hall’s visit to New York includes a couple of firsts: his first
visit to the Guggenheim Museum and his first time eating Mexican food —
at Rosa Mexicana, where he had a strawberry margarita.
Even though he is the dean of one of the world’s most famous churches
and had a key role in the royal wedding, Dean Hall said most New
Yorkers have no idea who he is.
He stresses that meeting celebrities is something novel for him. Yes,
he may have been at the same royal wedding post-reception at Buckingham
Palace as David Beckham. But they did not speak.
Before becoming dean, he oversaw education for the Church of England,
which certainly did not lead to sipping Champagne with Mr. Beckham or
Mr. John.
“That’s not my life,” he said. “My life is of a priest and a servant.”