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Guns & Bells. While 1,200 guests watched the ceremony in scorching 90° heat in the cathedral, millions more watched it live on Eurovision and special closed-circuit TV in Athens (Greece has no regular television service). Before a velvet-covered table and flanked by the royal families of Greece and Denmark, the King and his princess exchanged rings, hers made from the meltings of coins minted in the time of Alexander the Great. Golden crowns were held symbolically over their heads as Archbishop Chrysostomos intoned the 32-minute Greek Orthodox ritual (AnneMarie, a Lutheran, will join the Greek Orthodox Church later).
To Constantine, the archbishop, his white beard bobbing, said: "Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine upon the walls of thy house, thy children like the olive branches around thy table." The couple then drank three times from an enameled cup of wine, circled the altar in the traditional Dance of Isaiah as rose petals cascaded from the ceiling. As they marched down the aisle, a 101-gun salute began reverberating across the blue hills of Hellas, and all the bells of Athens began to peal.