TUESDAYS AT NOON: Ethne on the Royal Wedding

Posted by Ethne~

I am loveable.  Really.

Loveable Me

BUT…

…any of my friends reading this know that when it came to my wedding, I was a teensy weensy bit obnoxious.  I wasn’t bridezilla.  But I loved the idea of my own wedding for years and years, and I was happy to tell every one of my friends about it.  I had a folder of my fave dress (which my real one didn’t look like); I had a tape with my fave wedding songs (which I did use); and I had other snippets of flowers, cakes, etc.  Some ended up being helpful, some not so much.

When Shaun proposed and I got to plan my real actual wedding, I was thrilled.  When my siblings have gotten married, I’ve been thrilled to be involved.  When my friends have gotten married, I’ve always been involved, particularly with making them totally gorgeous (shout out to Whit too).  So they can’t complain about the teensy-bit-obnoxious-wedding-Ethne when they TOTALLY benefited.

So I am totally, completely excited about the Royal Wedding of HRH Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton.  You know this; I’ve mentioned it once or twice.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but Thrifty Nana, Whit and I are frothing at the mouth in anticipation. 



It's pretty, huh? 
My caption of Facebook: 'He picked me instead'



I found this a while ago, not even thinking about Kate's ring

This got me wondering – is everyone so excited about the big event? – or are they annoyed with the hoopla and can’t wait for it to be over? – or are they completely indifferent?  Particularly as Americans, why the world are we so excited about it?

First, going back to my own wedding excitement – for many of us, weddings are just plain fun and exciting.  They are, on the whole, a happy affair – worldwide.  So then you add to that the pomp and circumstance of a ROYAL wedding and every little girl’s dream of being a princess, it’s practically magical.  To top it off, these two are actually in love with one another.  You don’t have to be British to love that.

Second, there’s a lot of yucky stuff going on in this world.  That’s not new; it’s historically a part of the human condition just as happy things like weddings are.  But still, there are a lot of reasons to be sad about a lot of stuff.  You don’t need me to tell you this.  So a happy love affair and the wedding that promises giant, hallowed (Princess Diana’s ring and Westminster Abbey, for example) items/places, gorgeous rings, tiaras, dresses, carriages, morning suits, military regalia AND a prince and princess – everyone can use a momentary amnesia of the bad stuff to focus on something like Will and Kate’s wedding.  You don’t have to be British to love that.

As Americans, we’ve got ‘royalty’ like the Kennedys, movie stars, me outstanding good citizens, scientists and the like – but I guess it’s not quite the same as being royal.  Maybe this lack of our own official monarchy (not that I’d trade) makes it more exciting or dramatic for Americans. 

One of my majors at St. Olaf College (UM YA YA!) was American Studies.  It was super interesting.  For example, we studied why people have grass in their yards – it’s totally artificial, not indigenous to the US, and it takes a lot of work to maintain.  [One of my proudest achievements, aside from graduating from such a prestigious liberal arts college, was my American Studies 101 essay on deodorant.  I’m not joking.  I got an A and was even singled out by the professor as an example of who got the essay right on.]  One of the things we studied was weddings.  Weddings are a public presentation of the joining of two families (which historically is a really big deal), they are a public profession of love and they offer the promise of procreating a new generation, among many other things.  Bottom line – weddings go way back in history and have quite an interesting and varied evolution and significance.

KD (left) and Easy Mac (right) wearing their fascinators
I had made by Sassy Heart Tutus

As Brits, they SHOULD be super excited about this thing.  Things aren’t the greatest over there either, and this is actually their royal family.  Fortunately for me, I was able to take this inquiry directly to the source.  My Brit brother RS is happy to keep me up-to-date on the royal goings-on (including making sure I know what are the best places to catch all the coverage).  And even better, when we got together for Easter last weekend, we called his Mum and Dad on the Isle of Wight and asked them.  What’s their take?  Mum said there are loads of commemorative memorabilia to purchase.  Get me some of that!  And Dad said that things are pretty much at fever pitch right now – on top of the fact that everyone is really excited to have a holiday on Friday.  Not everyone over there is thrilled – he said gas prices are through the roof there, probably about the equivalent of $9-10 over here.  But on the whole, the Brits are pretty excited.

Third, there is always the celebrity factor.  You all know I love me a celebrity trainwreck.  But I love even more a celebrity love story.  I feel a little sorry for Will and Kate that they will be in the spotlight forevermore.  But only a little bit.  They will also get to do really cool things like travel, have really cool things like Crown Jewels, live really cool places and do really important humanitarian things.  And HELLO? they get to be King and Queen someday.

For those of you out there who are with me in being really excited about this wedding, ROCK ON.  (Shaun, stop rolling your eyes.)  For those of you who are indifferent, well, I say you’re missing out.  For those of you with a bad attitude about this whole thing, I say to you – lighten up and shut up.  There are a lot of good and important reasons why this wedding is exciting and perhaps even more, why this young royal couple has a chance to change the face of another generation all across the world.

I’ll do a WOM toast to them on Friday!  Maybe with a mimosa at 3 a.m., maybe not…