Buckingham Palace has set a date for the coronation of King Charles III.
The ceremony will take place on Saturday, May 6, at Westminster Abbey, and will be conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. The King’s coronation — which happens to fall on the same day as the fourth birthday of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s firstborn Archie — will take place almost eight months after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Sept. 8. The monarch was laid to rest on Sept. 19 with a funeral at Westminster Abbey, followed by a funeral procession in London, where Variety was on the ground. She was later buried in Windsor.
Buckingham Palace confirmed the coronation date on Tuesday evening, local time, noting that the ceremony will “reflect the monarch’s role today and look towards the future, while being rooted in longstanding traditions and pageantry.”
King Charles — who, at 74, is the oldest monarch to take the throne — technically succeeded Queen Elizabeth in the role as soon as she died, but the coronation is considered a “symbolic celebration” of his reign. He’ll be crowned alongside his wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, whose official title is now the Queen Consort.
The coronation will be the first in almost 70 years, and follows the Queen’s June 1953 coronation. The world can expect more of the lavish pageantry that Britain excels in, and put on full display during the extensive mourning period for Queen Elizabeth.
In the historic event, Charles will be anointed as sovereign and a crown will be placed upon his head, according to the BBC. Scenes from his mother’s coronation have played constantly on broadcasts around the world this year, first for her Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June and then around her death and funeral just three months later.
While the 1953 coronation was three hours long, however, the BBC reports that the King’s ceremony will be markedly shorter, “more diverse and with a much smaller number of guests.” There’s also likely to be a procession through London featuring a horse-drawn Gold State Coach.
Many Britons will be wondering whether the coronation — which is the first to take place on a Saturday since Edward VII’s coronation in 1902 — will result in an extra bank holiday that’s added or moved to the coronation weekend. (There’s already a May 1 bank holiday scheduled for the Monday before the coronation.) The U.K. declared a bank holiday for the Monday of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral.
The question also remains how sensitive Buckingham Palace will be to the cost of living crisis that’s currently affecting many people in Britain, where skyrocketing energy bills are set to cripple households this winter, alongside rising costs for food and mortgage-rate increases. While many in Britain admired the Queen and didn’t seem to take issue with the estimated £8 million price-tag for her funeral, it could be a slightly different story for the King coming out of a trying winter for many Britons.