Julie Etchingham: live broadcasting a royal wedding, you can never plan for everything. There'll be surprises

When the phone call came, it was quite unexpected. It was 2011 and the nuptials of the now Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were approaching. On the end of the line was ITV’s head of news and current affairs. “Can I talk to you about the Royal wedding?” he asked. “We’d like you to anchor it, with Phillip Schofield.”

This came as a great surprise. I had been hosting the channel’s News at Ten for three years by this point but had never anchored an event on the scale of a royal wedding before. Naturally I jumped at the chance. The idea was that I would bring my news background to the table and Phillip his entertainment background, an acknowledgement of the two strands of the story we were telling: on the one hand, it was a historic event replete with all the pomp and ceremony that befitted the marriage of a future monarch; on the other, a day of celebration that would bring people into the pubs and the streets to cheer and rejoice as a nation.

When I learned it was to be the same presenting line-up this time around, for the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, my excitement was no less great. It’s like getting the band back together again, or perhaps more accurately, climbing back on to the rollercoaster and plunging into the dizzying, daunting and enormously fun enterprise of bringing one of the biggest news events of the year into living rooms nationwide. Which is quite some responsibility, certainly.

This time will be different in a variety of ways. The location, for a start, will be Windsor instead of London, and we’ll be swapping the base on the Mall we had last time for a specially constructed studio on the Long Walk in the historic market town.

This time, also, I have the benefit of hindsight. If anchoring the wedding of William and Kate taught me anything, it was that preparation is key. Our job is to bring the event to life for the viewer by not only showing but telling, and it’s impossible to do too much cramming beforehand: poring over history books; walking the route the carriage will take; memorising key facts; and arming myself with as much detail as I can, as many nuggets of information to be pulled out on the day and deployed where appropriate as proceedings unfold.

It’s a process akin to studying for an exam (though definitely far more pleasurable) and I spent even more time preparing for the previous Royal wedding than I did for my own. The prep itself takes a couple of months at least, during which you block out your diary and shut yourself away with your books. Today, a day of history will unfold before the country’s eyes, and our job is to guide them through it.

On April 29, 2011, the date of William’s wedding, we were on air from 9.30am until mid-afternoon  - a rather long time in live broadcasting terms - so I blocked out the day in half-hour chunks: what will we be seeing at this time? What will we need to know at that point? The subject areas for study ranged from military history to the Middleton family, and the story of Westminster Abbey itself.

Similarly, I have for some time now been in deep revision mode for Harry and Meghan’s big day. A different cast of characters and alternative location mean a whole new story to learn and to tell. As well as focusing on the details of the day itself, we’ll be looking back on the lives of the couple so far, and forward to their futures, and what impact they might have on the world stage as a pair. So again I have walked the route, clocking any points of interest along the way and planning for what I might say about them. I have toured St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, where the wedding will take place. And I’ve stepped myself in learning about the location of the ceremony, the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world. Because what we want to bring to viewers in not just the event itself, but also its place in history.

You can never plan for everything, though, and there will always be some surprises. The day before the Cambridges’ wedding, we were all in our studio on the Mall when someone piped up suddenly, “I think that’s Camilla over there!” “Surely not,” we said, but when we turned around, there was the Duchess of Cornwall, doing an impromptu walkabout among the crowds who’d been camping out there.

 In terms of impact, it was a masterpiece. Then, later on, Princes William and Harry appeared as well, dressed in jumpers and chinos, and wandering among the fans on the Mall who had turned out to catch a glimpse of the celebrations.

I expect there’ll be a few surprises this time too. All you can do, therefore, is prepare for what you know and just hope you can deal with whatever else the day throws at you. I’ve covered election nights, a Royal wedding and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, among other things, but the run-up to a big event of this nature is no less nerve-wracking for all that. Before the last Royal wedding, we stayed quite close to our studio the night before, ready to get into position nice and early. I rose around 4.30am and tried to get myself looking reasonable before walking through Green Park at dawn to what would be my base for the day. It was a chilly, misty morning and I was alone. It was at that moment that the scale and significance of the coming day dawned on me. Although I would be just a tiny cog in the goings-on, I suddenly had butterflies in my stomach.

But once it starts, the adrenaline kicks in and you hardly notice the hours go by. I was so completely focused last time, I barely even stopped to eat - a few M&M’s and a couple of bananas sustained me throughout. An iron bladder, meanwhile, is a must.

Once again, we're starting very early today. But once you’re there, in the midst of it all, it is never less than thrilling. The good mood of the crowd sets the tone, and the atmosphere is highly infectious.

This wedding promises to have a different feel to William’s. It is not a state event, and politicians aren’t invited, for one. Then there’s Meghan Markle, and all the elements she brings. She’s had the most extraordinary life, after all: passionate and vocal about issues she cares about, she also knows, as a former actress, what it is to be on camera. Yet for all her professionalism, she’s a young American woman being brought into the heart of the Royal family, a challenge that is fascinating to contemplate.

Ultimately though, besides everything else, we’re looking at a great love story; a joyous occasion that will generate goodwill throughout the streets of Windsor and far, far beyond.

As told to Rosa Silverman

Harry and Meghan - The Royal Wedding is on ITV today from 9.25am. Julie Etchingham anchors ITV News at Ten