Prince William Opens Up About Pre-Wedding Jitters, Becoming King

He also opens up about how he and Queen Elizabeth have gotten closer over the years: "I tried to understand a bit more about her role and my own role"

Prince William's a royal, but like any groom, he had his fair share of pre-wedding jitters.

In Elizabeth: Queen, Wife, Mother, a documentary airing in the U.K. on ITV1 this June, William opens up about barely getting a wink of sleep the night before his and Kate Middleton's nuptials last April.

"I hadn't slept at all that night because obviously all the crowds were on The Mall," he says. "They were singing and cheering all night long. So the excitement of that, the nervousness of me, and everyone singing meant I slept for about half an hour."

What else was he anxious about on his big day?

Taking a tumble!

"The hardest thing was trying to walk down the stairs with my spurs on, sideways," he says. "I had visions of myself and my brother [Prince Harry] colliding and crashing down the stairs."

Despite his nerves, William, 29, says, "It was good fun. It was really good fun."

Thanks to his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, William and Kate's wedding day really felt like their own. After he was handed a guest list with 777 names on it—and "not one person I knew or Catherine knew"—it was the queen who told him to "get rid of it."

She told him to "start from your friends and then we'll add those we need to in due course. It's your day."

He also says that he's gotten closer to Queen Elizabeth as he's grown older, explaining, "I think being a small boy it's very daunting seeing the queen around and not really quite knowing what to talk about or what to ask her."

"I think over the years that's got a lot better. I've grown up—hopefully—a little bit and tried to understand a bit more about her role and my own role," he adds.

He respects the way Queen Elizabeth has reigned and realizes that it's not going to be easy when he eventually becomes king.

"They're quite hard footsteps to fill," he says. "There's not much wiggle room left for me to try and find my own path, but I will do...And I would just hope, and I think she would love, is that a bit of what she's done and a bit of what she's achieved, and a bit of how she's conducted herself, we all take away in our own lives and try and do it ourselves."