'The Independent' has a proud tradition of covering royal matters less slavishly than its rivals. We have loosened up a bit since our early days, when the 1988 birth of the Duke and Duchess of York's first child was marked with a single grudging sentence in the News In Brief column.

But we still don't like to get carried away, and, as a result, our readers might justifiably fear that they have been less comprehensively briefed on the minutiae of tomorrow's royal nuptials than readers of some other papers. Fear no more. This randomly arranged selection of wedding-related facts, compiled by Richard Askwith, tells you all you need to know (and quite a lot that you don't) about what some (but no means all) are calling the most romantic day of the 21st century.

* At 11am tomorrow, 66 years to the day after Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker, Prince William of Wales, 28, geography graduate, water polo player, helicopter pilot and second in line to the throne, will marry Catherine Middleton, 29, history of art graduate, former fashion buyer and millionaire's daughter, in Westminster Abbey.

* Begun by Benedictine monks in the 10th century, the Abbey was consecrated by Edward the Confessor in 1065, a week before he died. His own 20-year marriage, to Edith of Wessex, is widely held to have remained unconsummated.

* The groom will arrive at the Abbey at 10.15am. Most of the 1,900 guests will already be in their seats, with 8.15-9.45am designated as the period for arrival. Only the royals - foreign and British - and the bride's family are supposed to arrive later. (Lavatories are situated near Poets' Corner.) The bride herself should arrive at 11am. She has allowed herself nine minutes for the drive from the Goring hotel in Victoria. The car will be the same Rolls-Royce Phantom VI in which the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall were attacked by protesters during last December's student fees protests in London.

The Royal wedding: Trees, Tiaras & Trestle Tables