Ceremonial sword salutes. Where am I with this ?

Hi,

I am invited to form part of a "guard of honour" at the weeding of a good freinds' son.

Fine, so we had a practice.

Our old RAF blues & all that.

The swords are borrowed, and so are we.

As none of us were really given any parade ground tuition as to this procedure, differences arose.

All technical, not ceremonial bods.

My understang is that the swords are 1st held at an angle downwards, then at a word from someone, raised upright smartly to your nose,then crossed with the chap opposite, right to right.

This is then returned to some angle groundwards, after the passing of the couple.

The rehearsal was a shambles, but if we practice along the lines above, are we doing it correctly ?

Any military parade specialist out there ?

Bob ( Ex Sqn.Ldr.)