I have to admit that leading up to the Royal Wedding I really wasn’t that into it. Not that I was opposed to it, but rather I was ambivalent, neither here nor there about the whole thing. Obviously, you’d have to have been in some strange isolation experiment not to have seen and heard all the hype leading up to Friday’s event. I have a great filter though and quickly discard the stuff I don’t want to see. So while some were moaning about the endless coverage, I didn’t find it that bad. Then on Thursday, Sarah from Wall Candy started encouraging a group of ladies to change their avatar on Twitter and Facebook to their wedding photo and Bob’s your uncle, I found myself caught in the wave of excitement.
I was giddy as I scanned my proofs from my wedding into Facebook, which 10 years later I have still not had developed. I grinned from ear to ear, as I watched my Twitter and Facebook feeds fill up with beautiful brides. I felt like a broken record, saying “Gorgeous”, “Beautiful”, “You’re a model”, over and over again, but it was true! Every single time I saw another bride in my stream I could not help but gush. The expression, “Every bride is beautiful” may be trite, but it is also the truth.
Never to be mistaken for an early bird, I simply could not pull myself out of bed to watch the wedding live though. As soon as I got the girls out the door for school, I rushed to my office to watch live. I gasped out loud when I saw Princess Kate, she was truly stunning. I always thought she was a pretty girl but she simply glowed on Friday. Watching the beauty of it all I felt a sudden pang of guilt. I had not included my girls in this. There had been no hype here and if they hadn’t heard it at school, I wasn’t even sure if they knew a royal wedding was happening.
Their life has been filled with “princesses” that don’t exist from the time they were born. For them to miss seeing a true princess marry her prince seemed a little sad. It’s not everyday we bear witness to such an event. In fact it had been thirty years since the last royal wedding of this magnitude and it truly was something to behold. The pageantry, the splendour, the pomp and circumstance and the wonderfully outrageous hats. Things that are very foreign to us here in Canada. Thankfully, I wasn't too late with this realization.
When the girls got home from school we talked about the royal wedding. We looked at pictures on the internet and I reminisced with them about what I knew of the royal family growing up. I told them about Princess Diana and the big wedding to Prince Charles. How they had two little boys, one of whom got married that day. I pulled out my Royal Doulton china doll of HRH Prince William as a toddler that has been packed away so long, I scarcely remembered owning it. I shared about the day that Diana died and how one of my best friends and I openly wept, surprised at our own heartache. Hardly a diehard fan of the monarchy, I was genuinely caught off guard by how deeply her death touched me. I got a little teary when I explained that she would be very proud of her son today. As a mother, can you imagine not seeing your child getting married? Although they are royalty, their stories are very human. Marriage, children, death. These things bind us all.
A little later in the evening we made some popcorn and went and watched it on TV. We laughed at some of the outrageous outfits. We talked about visiting London someday and seeing Buckingham Palace and Westminister Abbey. We talked about how they would help carry each other’s dress when they got married. It was assumed that the oldest would marry first and I chuckled because in their world that is how it must work out, but I know differently and kept that to myself for now. My oldest loved Princess Kate’s dress and would like one “just like it”. My youngest is clearing wall real estate for Prince Harry, as he is now taking Bieber’s place. Sorry Justin, six year olds are fickle.
I heard many detractors say “enough already” or “there are more important things than a royal wedding”, “People are suffering”. Sadly, that is all too true. But you know what? People are weary. We are hammered daily with messages of grief, hatred and tragedy. The bad news just keeps on coming. It will be there tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. So for one day, many of us got swept up in a fairy tale and I don’t see anything wrong with that at all.
We all love happy endings.
*Photo credit: Maria Lianos A Motherworld
"
Printer-friendly version