The Royal Nuptials

I setup the TiVO to record the Royal Wedding. Why not? I watched a fair amount of the 1981 wedding of Di and Prince Charles, but there was no recording device then - At least we didn't have one then, so I was laying in bed listening to the cast of the wedding. England is five or six hours ahead of us, so I am not getting up at 0400 just to hear the people staffing E! speculating for an hour on what Kate Middleton will be wearing. (Little tip: she will be wearing a wedding dress. Anything else is just gravy.All this fuss because no one's seen the dress yet!)

I remember Di's dress, this unbelievably fluffy nightmare with something completely ridiculous like a 30-foot train. Why? I suspect she was dying to get out of that thing. I wouldn't have gotten in it, but it's tough to know if she was pushed to pick an over the top Disney Princess dress or if she really had such poor taste. I don't mean to knock her fashion sense - normally she looked very natty all the time.

Kate appears to have a good head on her shoulders when it comes to dressing. She always looks impeccable. I actually think she gave up dressing like a slouch after dating will for so long. It's a pity when you can't wear what you want, run out in sweats or cargo pants or (my favourite) jeans because you happen to be dating someone from the house of Windsor.

(Is that the Royal families' surname? I'm never sure how that works. How interesting. They had the title or surname of Saxon-Coburg & Gotha but during World WarI, the royal family wanted to cut all possible ties to Germany, so George V made this proclamation: "Now, therefore, We, out of Our Royal Will and Authority, do hereby declare and announce that as from the date of this Our Royal Proclamation Our House and Family shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor, and that all the descendants in the male line of Our said Grandmother Queen Victoria who are subjects of these Realms, other than female descendants who may marry or may have married, shall bear the said Name of Windsor.")

Kate seems to be accustomed to the hype and bullshit that goes with dating one from the Windsor family. On the other hand, I wonder if the press will go crazy over watching her every second to see if she gets pregnant right away. I guess with Di, there was a huge interest due to Prince Charles' age and his not having produced an heir. I wonder if they have learned their lesson about getting past the perceived stigma of the divorced woman. Clearly they got past the marriage part - they did not stop Prince Charles from marrying Camilla Parker-Bowles. I was quite happy to see he married her. He was always madly in love with her and should have married her from the get-go. They would have bypassed a lot of bad press and emotional upheaval if they hadn't pushed Prince Charles to marry Princess Di.

I know King Edward VIII had step down and abdicate his throne, which he did before the year was out, leaving way for Prince Albert to become King George VI. Prince Edward married Wallace Simpson, a twice divorced woman, much to his family's horror.

At least Prince Charles is still the heir apparent. The Parliament and other countries still under the Windsors have gotten past that. Prince Charles made a mistake in not marrying Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, but I think he made up for a lot of the ignominies that followed the divorce of Diana by standing up to Parliament and insisting that the Royal family bring the body home, arrange and pay for the funeral, and as mother to the next heir apparent, give her a royal burial. His and Camilla's vows also included an apology for their behaviour during the marriage.

Quite a man, that Prince Charles. I'll be interested to see if he becomes Charles III or George VII when he ascends the throne. He'll be the oldest man to ascend the throne. Curiously enough, for a royal family, they seem remarkably long lived. The Queen Mother died at age 101, Just 8 days from 102nd birthday. Queen Elizabeth II, King GeorgeV and Elizabeth's daughter, ascended the throne in 1952 and she's 85 and in excellent health.

So Friday marks a new age for the Windsors. And I think that, like most people, this is a marriage that will last and be very sweet.