BRITAIN: Awaiting A Stable Marriage

From Woking to Newcastle—and in hundreds of working and middle-class towns in between—English housewives were planning tea parties and lunches around the telly. Limousines were parked in front of smart stores throughout London's West End, while their owners shopped for silver trays and crystal decanters. Throughout the kingdom, pensioners were wrapping handmade doilies and dainty little handkerchiefs monogrammed "A" and "M." At Buckingham Palace a special office was set up to inspect and display the vast piles of gifts. The occasion: this week's wedding in Westminster Abbey of Princess Anne, 23,...