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Princess Patricia established the modern tradition of having a public wedding. Tens of thousands thronged the streets of London to catch a glimpse of her and her husband as they rode back from Westminster Abbey. 
HRH Princess Patricia of Connaught was born on March 17, 1886 in Buckingham Palace (on table with older sister Margaret, brother Arthur and grandmother Queen Victoria in 1890; on left w siblings, younger cousin and Victoria)
Her mother’s precarious health meant the unmarried Patricia often stepped into her shoes as vice-regal hostess, especially during the Duke of Connaught’s tenure as Canada’s governor general from 1911 to 1916.
The Connaughts travelled extensively throughout Canada—reportedly more than 6,000 km in 1915 alone—and frequently it was Patricia who accompanied her father. Her easy manner was a sharp contrast to the conformist, sometimes stifling etiquette prevalent at the time.
Like today’s royals, her every move was actively tracked by the media. In 1912, the focus of a New York Times story on an invitation for the Connaughts to visit an exposition in Yukon’s Dawson City was on Patricia, with her parents getting second billing.
The tall athletic royal loved spending time outdoors, especially enjoying winter pursuits in Canada. She skated at Rideau Hall, rode in the Rockies, golfed and played field hockey. (seated far left next to mother, with father standing second from left, during field hockey game)
She was also a talented artist, often painting botanical studies. Her cousin Princess Marie Louise said she was a “gifted and a brilliant artist. Her paintings are rather modern—in fact, very modern—and…I know they are brilliantly clever.”
In 1913, Patricia made headlines by appointing a prominent suffragette as a lady-in-waiting. Her silent support for women’s right to vote came as suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst was preparing for a trip to the United States.
The Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry was one of the last privately funded regiments in the British Empire. On August 23, 1914, Patricia presented its original Colour, the Ric-a-Dam-Doo, which she designed and created.
On her 31st birthday in 1917, Canada put her portrait on its one dollar bill. She was only the second solo non-regal woman on Canadian currency.
It was in Canada that Patricia fell in love with Alexander Ramsay, a Royal Navy officer and aide-de-camp to her father, who reportedly didn’t think the third son of the 13th Earl of Dalhousie was a suitable husband to a princess.
Finally, royal author Robert Golden writes “it is said that on her deathbed the Duchess [of Connaught] expressed a wish that all obstacles to their union be removed.” The duchess died a few days before Patricia’s birthday in 1917.
Just after the end of the Great War, on December 27, 1918, her first cousin, King George V announced their betrothal. By then, Alexander Ramsay was 36, Princess Patricia was 32.
Patricia decided to give up her royal title. Days before her wedding, King George V allowed her to “relinquish the style of Royal Highness and the title of Princess of Great Britain and Ireland” upon her marriage. She would be Lady Patricia Ramsay.
In what the Times called “an almost embarrassing display of good will” Princess Patricia established the modern tradition of a public wedding becoming becoming first royal to wed in Westminster Abbey since King Richard II and Anne of Bohemia in 1382.
The populous wouldn’t get enough information about the wedding. A week before the wedding, it was leaked that the lining of her travel cloak would be “blue charmeuse” associated with her birth namesake, St. Patrick.
The PPCLI played a prominent role. The troops were “her boys”: “She visited them in hospital, she has sent them gifts, she has received from them messages and even letters,” the Illustrated London News explained in its wedding issue.
A few days before her wedding, Patricia, who had officially been appointed colonel-in-chief in 1918, inspected her regiment in Hampshire. She fastened a bronze laurel wreath to the torn and soiled Ric-a-Dam-Doo, the only colour carried into action during the Great War.
Not only did the regiment provide the honour guard for her wedding but it presented her with her bridal bouquet, tied with regimental colours.
Her Venetian-style dress, a softly draped silk velvet gown with silver embroidery and a historic veil was very modern for the time, and set the tone for the next decade of royal weddings. (much more on Patricia and her dress on @AlexandraKKim's feed)
Lady Patricia Ramsay was an active colonel-in-chief until her death in 1974. Now for the 100th anniversary of her wedding, her now-fragile dress is on display until the end of March at the PPCLI regimental museum in Calgary.
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