LONDON – They called for a kiss, and it came with a blush, from the groom, not from the bride. But the masses outside Buckingham Palace were still calling for “One more! One more! One more!”

Then Will and Kate gave them what they wanted. Thirty years after the famous single kiss on the balcony between Charles and Diana, their son Prince William and his new bride, Catherine Middleton, made their own bit of history on Friday. Wearing the isn’t-this-silly smiles of a modern, young couple fresh from the altar, they gave the crowd not one, but two.

More than any other moment, it symbolized the turning of a page for the British monarchy, of a new generation of kings and queens who would, perhaps, stand closer to the people.

After a majestic wedding in Westminster Abbey that comforted a nation in tough times and celebrated what it means to be British, the lofty royal family greeted the throngs outside the palace on a balcony shared by the beaming Middleton, the descendant of coal miners and daughter of run-of-the-mill Brits made good.

“I cannot tell you how proud I am today to be British, and how I felt when I heard them say, ‘I do,’” said Alice Morley, 18, draping herself in a Union Jack flag outside Buckingham Palace. “I had never been that into the royals, but I see all this, and it makes me feel that you can’t separate them from us as a country. … And with Kate, who is one of us, a commoner, I feel closer to them, like anyone can be in that palace.”

Middleton is not, in fact, a princess yet — at least not in official title. Instead, at the bequest of Queen Elizabeth II, William and Middleton will now be known as Their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The peculiarities of British titles kicked off a day that began with the pomp and circumstance of old royalty and ended with a bow to youth: disco dancing at the wedding reception in Buckingham Palace.

The ceremony itself was a celebration of Britishness and the notion of monarchy, filled with sweeping allusions to the outsize grandeur of these tiny islands in hymns, anthems and readings. That sense of England climaxed, perhaps, as the words of poet William Blake filled the medieval hall: “I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, till we have built Jerusalem, in England’s green and pleasant land.”

Like Diana in 1981, Middleton refused to say she would “obey” her husband in her wedding vows, but unlike Diana, she got his full name right while reading them out: William Arthur Philip Louis.

Yet for some, the poignancy of the day touched off with the first glimpses of William and Harry, their looks so like their late mother’s as they chatted in the back of the Bentley on their way to the abbey. Many noted the open carriage that carried the newlyweds from Westminster to Buckingham Palace was the same that carried Diana to her wedding at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

So much of the interest in this wedding, at least from overseas, stemmed from memories of Diana, whose own ill-fated fairy tale ended after a failed marriage and tragic death in 1997.

“I feel like Diana was with us today, like her story is coming full circle,” said Penny Bridgewater, 52, a housewife from Kent who spent the night in a tent with her daughter to get a good view of the procession. The last major royal event she attended was Diana’s funeral.

“William has always been in our hearts, losing his mum so early as he did,” she said. “Now I feel he’s become a man. I wish Diana could have seen this. I know she would have been so happy.”