The Requisite Royal Wedding Post

First of all, I didn’t even know that the wedding was going to be last night. That is how much of a royal ignoramus I am. But there I was, up at 2:00 a.m. to hunt down a little snack. On a whim, I turned on the TV—something I rarely do on weekdays (I save the bad disaster movies for the weekends, when they always cheer me up). So I turned on BBC America, and damned if there weren’t a bunch of people wearing big hats and pastel clothes. And it was on every freakin’ channel. Well, I figured, I’m up and it’s on. I’m watching it.

So I sat there for the next hour and half. I got to see the Sultan of Brunei, along with his wife in her very colorful, very covering dress. 

I saw the king and queen of Norway. I saw Princess Grace’s daughter; I forget which one. Or maybe her granddaughter; somebody royal and Monacan. I saw Elton John and wondered what it would be like to have to sit next to him and sing a hymn.

And then, of course, came the main attraction—the British royals arriving in their shiny cars that looked like those cellophane boxes that corsages come in. There was Prince Charles and Camilla, and the Queen in butter-yellow, along with her husband, whose name I can never remember but whom I will always think of as James Cromwell. And then the young princes—William the Upright and Harry the Scruffy, looking as relaxed as if they’d just popped in to Westminster Abbey for a round of poker.

And then Kate herself. The veil killed me—so sheer, so clingy, even sensuous, in a cold, windy, British way. I’ll skip the details; you’ve seen the photos—the dress was great, she looked beautiful. Her sister, however, got stuck with the worst job: She had to rearrange Kate’s six-foot train umpteen times (into the car, out of the car, onto the red carpet, around the weird little font in the portico of the cathedral). And on top of it, Sis had to do it all in a skin-tight mermaid dress; I could only imagine they hadn’t realized she’d have to climb stairs in that thing. And she had to ride herd on all the little royal kids. ("Pipe down, now. There's a small island nation in it for you.")

And after that, there was the walk down the aisle, a quick exchange of vows, and then a lot of sitting around. Hymns were sung, Bible verses were droned, and  it all started to feel like a Catholic funeral—it just went on and on. The cameras rarely left Kate and William, and maybe it’s just a function of my age, but I found myself counting up how long it had been since either of them had had a chance to pee. And the more I thought about it, the more obsessed I became. I mean, if I were Kate, I’d be worrying that I’d faint, that I’d stumble and rip the dress, that I’d puke, that I’d have to go to the bathroom in the worst possible way, at the worst possible moment. My hat's off to her—she didn't look like she was thinking any of that, but how could she not be? Clearly, she's a keeper.

Speaking of hats, there were a lot of them. They were even better than the Kentucky Derby ones, and probably a lot more expensive. I was a little concerned for the bower bird population of the world, though—either that, or some hat maker has gotten very good at faking springy, spoon-shaped feathers.

And the black horses! We didn’t get to see enough of them. So many beautiful black horses. I wouldn’t mind being a princess just for that.