Monitor: The Sunday newspapers on the wedding of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones

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THERE IS nothing grander than for a girl to marry a prince. But it is essential for the monarchy that the new Earl and Countess of Wessex are not grand. They appear to be an ordinary couple intent on continuing with their careers. As we enter the next millennium that should be the image a modern Royal Family strives to project.

Sunday People

THE ROYAL Family is a masterful inventor of "traditions" which appear to be sanctified by antiquity when they are little more than modern stunts to dazzle the gullible. Normally the showmanship works, but we wonder whether the Palace's decision to appropriate the dark ages by naming Edward Windsor and Sophie Rhys-Jones Earl and Countess of Wessex might backfire.

The Observer

THE WEDDING of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones - now to be known as the Earl and Countess of Wessex - was a celebration of something very simple: the love of two young people for one another. It is easy to subject such events in national life to precious over-analysis. The truth, however, is that this wedding has little to tell us about the great scheme of things.

The Sunday Telegraph

THE MONARCHY cannot afford another marriage failure. It would clog the transform-ation of the institution which has been taking place over the last decade. This is not an arranged marriage or one made under pressure, as was the case with the Prince and Princess of Wales. It is a joining of two mature people determined to make a success where other royal siblings have failed.

(Lord St John of Fawsley)

Sunday Mirror

THIS LAST landmark of the century in the troubled history of the House of Windsor had its significance. Not only was it the union of Prince Edward Antony Richard Louis to Sophie Rhys-Jones, a commoner. It brought together two people who are determined, like ordinary people, to continue working at the jobs they love. And this is the spirit that may help the royal family survive and even flourish into the next millennium.

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