Chapter 423: Grand Wedding Ceremony
Since Emperor Jeffrey Dixon recognized us as a nation, more people have migrated to the queendom. Sure, venturing into the continent's most dangerous environment was certainly a risk, but the construction of the monster-repellent highway and the introduction of the trains made it possible for people to have a trip safely.
Currently, Louisiana's population is a little above a hundred thousand, around the same population as in the city of Lavender.
The crowd was divided by a wide aisle made out of two rows of metal barricades and tough knights in the middle that stretched from the royal gate to the honor gate. Apparently, they were not watching the actual wedding, as it was not held in the royal courtyard.
Instead, they would be witnessing the entirety of the ceremony through a huge translucent projection, around thirty meters in width, hovering stationary above the royal courtyard. The projection was created by Illusion Magic Level 3: Projection, which was projected from a podium-like device to send a clear live feed to the audience, though it was showing only one angle.
The thing that was used to capture the ceremony, the camera lens, was a magic device that I invented as an experiment. It was actually a modification of the crystallized eye of a gigantic, one-eyed humanoid monster called Cyclops. It was mithrill-wired so that I did not have to enchant Clairvoyance on it just to make the thing wireless.
Aside from streaming an event live, the projector also had several thin rectangular transparent prisms, which I called memory cards, that recorded events that could be played on the projector.
In this wedding ceremony, the projector made its debut in this world. I decided to recreate it and make it accessible to the public to make our lives easier. The trains had made an appearance, so this project was next.
I had been wanting to introduce Earth's modern technologies into this world. Since I really did not want this world to discover coal-generated electricity or even crude oil, which was the ingredient for plastic, I made my inventions magic-based.
Anyways, traditionally, weddings were usually held in the church, and so this world cultured that as well, and we had a royal chapel in the palace. It was not that spacious, like a church or a cathedral, but it was big enough to accommodate all of our important guests. With that said, we chose that location for the actual wedding ceremony.
The royal chapel was not decorated intensively to maintain its beauty and solemnity. The pews were divided into two, leaving an aisle in the middle, and were neatly lined in symmetry facing the chancel.
The ceremony was about to start, and the invited guests had taken their own seats and were only waiting for the brides to make their entrance. The orchestra had been playing some music to entertain the guests while waiting. Of course, I "commissioned" Rick to make these music pieces for us.
By the way, the organist of the day was Lesley Oddrey. She was Mary's friend in the Kingdom of Astley, and she used to teach me how to play the piano when I was a kid.
Currently, I was relaxing my butt in the front row of the right side. Together in the same seat, starting from the aisle, my sister sat on the furthest end of the pew. As the crown princess of the queendom, she had the right to be the first.
Next to her was Christine, her fiancee, and then Mary, also her fiancee. Mary might be unbeknownst to most of the guests, but Big Sis had stated that she would marry her despite the downfall of her family.
Next to Mary was me, followed by my fiancees, Iris and Sophia, respectively. Basically, the seat was occupied by the bride's children and their respective fiancees.
Even I did not know if these two were the only ones I would marry in the future, as there were some women who I would probably end up marrying. Especially since Iris herself recommended and offered me a certain someone to marry.
(Just because I greatly loved women meant that she could recruit more members for me. But the person she recommended to me was not bad.)
Well, joining the same column with us were the members of the Raeven family, including Melissa, Mark's betrothed. The queendom's vassals, Michael, Lucy, Uriel, and Dane, whom we would be appointed to barons in the future, were present in the chapel as well.
On the other hand, in the other column, I could see the faces of our special and important guests. Among them was the Imperial Royal Family of Dixon, including the emperor himself, who were taking the seat in the first row.
It was noticeable that the two imperial princes were not with them. Prince Edward's absence made sense since he had beef with Christine and her family, who were present at the ceremony. In the case of Prince Elgin, they shamefully said that he despised same-sex relationships and was homophobic, so he did not go with them.
We also invited King Paul Astley and some other important people in the Kingdom of Astley, which they happily accepted. On Astley's side, Sir Rick Wesley, my clone, was present as well. We also sent some invitations to the Kingdom of Boulder, but they only sent their prime minister as the proxy of King Warry Boulder.
The guests of this wedding mostly consisted of our close friends and acquaintances, with a few from the royal families of several nations, to establish further personal and diplomatic relationships.
When the last music stopped, the orchestra did not play for a moment. Until suddenly, the organ and the fanfare of brass finally rang out in the chapel to announce the start of the ceremony.