Who even cares about THAT?!

Monday, April 18, 2011
Lately there's been a bit of an uproar over all the hoopla about  Prince William and Miss Kate Middleton's upcoming marriage. American media gets all goofy when it comes to big news for U.K. Royalty and as per usual, this spring's Royal Wedding's getting hyped to death.With almost two week remaining until the April 29 ceremony at Westminster Abbey, it's easy to wish the media would just give the whole prince/princess wedding thing a rest. I mean, who even cares about THAT?! 

 *shyly raises arm*

I do.

Okay I'm not exactly checking out the Royal Wedding website every day, but what sort of Anglophile would if I didn't have even a passive interest in the pending royal nuptials?When an interesting article about the Royal Wedding pops up on Yahoo, I usually click on it  and . . . read it.

It's not that I really give a fig about what the royals are up to, but I think for many American children, the concept of a monarchy is something so removed from our daily lives that we can't help but get our fairy tale fantasies confused with these very real people. From my earliest days, the Royal Family has always evoked a sense of misplaced wistfulness in me: a faint wish Princess Di could be my mom, then a jovial wish that Prince William could be my husband and now just slight wish that whatever wonderful designer dress Kate gets herself into next Friday from now could be my wedding dress.

Sure the royals are just privileged, purposeless people in the modern world, but those who declare royal weddings most ridiculous must have very cold hearts indeed. I simply can not look at a royal wedding without my inner (and very suppressed) romantic letting out a teensy weensy little squeal. A royal wedding is the epitome of all that is wedding: endless extravagance, senseless traditions, pretty dresses, princess fantasies. What's not to love? (Did I mention the pretty dresses?)

The first time I visited London, in April 2003, Kensington Palace had a royal wedding dress exhibit. I loved seeing how the royal brides' dresses both reflected the era of the wedding and also influenced everyday brides' dresses for years after the royal wedding.

After all, if Victoria hadn't worn white to marry Albert, who knows what color dresses we'd be walking down the aisle in? 

Queen Elizabeth II saved up ration cards for the material used in her post WWII wedding dress.


Princess Di's wedding dress (which I have to admit, I don't much care for) is still culturally relevant today.



And my all time favorite royal wedding dress? Princess Margaret's 1960 number. It's all out class.

 
Sure the media could turn down a notch on Kate and Will wedding hype. But I'm not one to miss this satin, lace, and silk fantasy, no matter how silly it truly is.

16 comments:

  1. Honestly the whole wedding thing is silly - wearing an expensive dress, the rings, and all that? It's all pretty ridiculous. I see no relevance in dresses or jewelry because it's not there to be efficient, or to be useful... just decorative, and I'm morally opposed to anything that values fashion over function.

    At the end of the day - who cares what ANY wedding dress should look like? Why should we care what two mediocre people are doing across the ocean?

    The entire wedding industry's a crock to me, and I've been happily married for a long time without any of that none sense. It's consumerism at it's worst, to me. I can't stand it.

    It's not just Prince William and soon to be Princess Kate... it's ANY wedding buzz, including the Chelsea Clinton's, or any celebutante.

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  2. It is pretty much a fantasy however I look at it. Beautiful dresses, Marrying a prince and later on being named a princess.

    Of course , it is only for privileged. I think the expensive weddings are for people who afford it and people have reputations like royalty or President's daughter. It is just ridiculous when normal people wants to have extravagant wedding with a lot of debts surround after wedding.

    I prefer my own wedding to be as simple as it can. ^_^

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  3. Hi Ada! Our princess Victoria got married last summer, and the whole country was swallowed up by this big event. I was getting so fed up with it and really didn't care. I did watch some of it on TV, just to see her dress and the procession through Stockholm city:) And the bridal waltz was some of the most beautiful I've seen on telly. However, I thought the soccer world cup was much more important:)
    A lady in my prayer group had a good point though: isn't it better that people get involved in such things, instead of the usualy immoral violent stuff on TV? I liked that.

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  4. Media hype and consumerism aside, I won't be able to resist setting my alarm for the crack of dawn to watch Kate marry her prince.
    Mostly because when I was 9 years old, my grandmother woke me in the pre-dawn hours to watch Diana marry her prince. We had tea and scones, she had curled my long hair and we sighed at the sight of Diana's wrinkled train. Oh, I will definitely be watching.

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  5. I love this post. Sometimes I very interested and others I want a little less. I guess it depends on my mood. The pics on here are beautiful.
    www.rebeccabany.com
    http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/becbany

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  6. I agree with your favorite dress that Princess Margaret wore. She looks very beautiful.

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  7. I am with you on this one. 100%. From Princess Margaret's dress to this touching my romantic side! Who hasn't dreamed of the prince coming along and rescuing us from the bad step mother!!! Reality is different though. Just not enough princes around....
    Have a wonderful week!

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  8. Great post! I didn't know there was a website! I'm checking it out (even though I really don't care, wink wink) I do think it has something to do with the fact that American's just don't have anything as cool as a royal wedding!

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  9. While I doubt I will watch the even live (I think it is at 1 am my time!) I will no doubt steal a few glances at the photos. Alright maybe a bit more than a few glances!

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  10. Agreed, in re: Margaret's dress...

    But yeah, i don't honestly care. At craft club yesterday all of the ladies were talking about tuning in and such. Buying it itunes... I did not fit into that conversation AT ALL...

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  11. i will so totally look at the dress. i just really, really like dresses. :-)

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  12. I so don't want to ever have my own wedding because I hate having attention on me. I do, however, enjoy watching others spare no money making their dream day come true. It's a (hopefully) once in a lifetime deal, may as well soak it up if that's what you enjoy!

    PS I SUPER enjoy the dresses, cake and beautiful photos that result from weddings :)

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  13. Oh, I'd never seen Margaret's dress...how lovely!

    And agreed, as much as I'm annoyed by the endless coverage of Prince William and Kate's wedding, I can't help but get swept up in the romance of a royal wedding.

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  14. I have no shame about caring about the royal wedding- it's sort of iconic to see what people wear and the details! I am not into weddings at all but I do like looking at the traditions and details!

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  15. I think the only thing I find fascinating is what you already said, because royalty is such a crazy thing to think about for Americans.. it's fascinating. And deep down who doesn't want to be a real life princess?? (I DO!!!)

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  16. I agree - this wedding shouldn't matter but it does! I think you may have nailed it when you said that because the monarchy is so far removed from the American lifestyle, it kind of feels like all of that is taking place in a fairy-tale story. Who wouldn't want to see the prince kiss his beautiful bride at the end of the story? ;)

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