After my wife and I got engaged and started planning our wedding, we registered at the now-defunct Pier 1 Imports. What can I say? My wife was going through a goth-tiki phase at the time. It’s a real thing—shut up!

Anyway, one of the items on her registry wish list was a Morticia Addams–style peacock chair—a chair that none of our wedding guests purchased.

I don’t remember where we first heard this, but we were told that if you sent an invitation to the Queen of England, she would respond. You’d receive a letter from her secretary thanking you for the kind invitation but gracefully declining. It would even include the Queen’s signature. We wanted that—badly. How often does one get a rejection letter from a monarch?

So we went out and bought special card and envelope stock just for the Queen. We sent the invitation exactly twelve weeks in advance, as formal etiquette demands for overseas guests. And then we waited.

Meanwhile, my wife was tracking the items being purchased from our registry. She could see what was being bought, but not who bought each item—this is important. And, as I mentioned, no one was buying that damn peacock chair.

So I got an idea. I went over to Pier 1 and bought the chair myself. Then I asked the store manager to wait about a week and call my wife, telling her she had a pickup waiting at the store… from the Queen of England.

She agreed. Even better, she made a card, attached it to the chair, and didn’t tell any of her staff. They were all convinced it was from the Queen.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: there’s no way my wife would fall for something like that. And usually, I’d agree—she is as sharp as they come. But as fate would have it, the day she got the call from the cashier at Pier 1 was the very same day we received our letter from Buckingham Palace, declining our invitation, congratulating us on our wedding, and wishing us many happy years.

For years afterward that chair, now known as ‘the Queen’s throne’, for reasons both literal and metaphorical, took pride of place in our living room. And my dear, beautiful wife could not be convinced that it was not a royal present given to her by Her royal Majesty, Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Sadly, the chair finally succumb to age and general wear and tear, as we unfortunately learned that rattan furniture and pet rabbits do not a good combination make.

A Chair, a Wedding Invitation, and the Queen of England