Know where I’m going to be this Friday night? I bet you can’t guess. That’s right. I’m going to be glued to the computer monitor watching along with thousands of others as William Windsor gets married to Kate Middleton.
Why?
Well, to be honest, why the hell not?
I have friends all around the world, most of them don’t get the interest, some do. I am currently living in a former British Colony and most people down here could give a flying fig less. They don’t seem to understand the American obsession with the Royal family.
To be honest, I don’t understand it fully either. I know that the royal family is a fascination for me, and has been. Although I tend to enjoy more of the renaissance time period than modern, but that’s the same for just about everything English.
Americans are celebrity obsessed, that’s for certain. Don’t believe me, take a good look at how many gossip magazines are at the checkout counter next time you go grocery shopping. Now, take a moment to realize that there are none like that down here. At least not that I’ve seen readily available. Of course, i don’t go looking.
I am not usually celebrity obsessed. I don’t know who the Kardashians are or why I should care. I have no idea how many men Brittney Spears has been married to, or divorced from. And I can honestly say that I have no idea what Lady GaGa wore to what event. Or could I care.
But there is something about the Royal family that catches my attention. Something that sets the imagination on fire. Yeah, they’re the descendants of Tyrants and crazy people, and yes they’re all interrelated going most of the way back to William the Conqueror, but that’s not the point. The point is that every little girl wants to be a princess. And the royals give, and have given over generations, the chance to pretend.
There is something innately romantic in every little girl, Disney first starts to stir it up with Cinderella and the other Princesses in their movies, and then the little girls grow up, and there’s real princesses. History classes talk about kings and queens and princesses and things, storybooks give details about this and that and this. It’s enough to set the imagination wild.
Most Americans are never going to be rich. Most are never going to be Princesses or royalty of any kind. But that doesn’t stop the dreams. The hopes. The wishes on far away stars.
Grace Kelly was a girl from Philadelphia, she started acting, was a big movie star and she could dance with the angels. And then, she became a Princess. The perfect story for every little girl growing up in the USA. Or at least in the Philadelphia area. You too could maybe meet your prince and he will make you a princess.
Maybe it’s inevitable that I feel this way. My name is Sarah, which is Hebrew for “Princess”. I have always been treated like a princess by my parents, spoiled rotten and well behaved. I knew my manners and my education was stellar. I was 5 days old when Diana and Charles got married, my mom watching the wedding from her hospital bed. Maybe that had something to do with it.
I grew up fascinated with the English Royal family, from 1066 on down. There were points where I could recite the entire lineage from the War of the Roses on down to modern times. I can’t do that as much now. Henry VIII is as fascinating to me today as he was when i was in 10th grade history. Elizabeth I is just as imposing as she was back then.
And the royal wedding is going to be just as much fun as I can imagine. There is an aspect of romance to being able to have everything you can imagine and more for your wedding. That dress? yes please. Those flowers, i’ll take a dozen. Any thing you can imagine and create and come up with? Yes.
It’s a romance thing, it’s wanting what you can’t have. To be swept away by white stallions and a prince who will give you everything you can imagine.
I’m a happy woman. I am in a relationship with a man who loves, respects, and cherishes me. he spoils me and treats me as close to a princess as I’ve been treated since I was a little girl playing with my cabbage patch dolls that my Daddy got me and going to stage shows with no discernible plot but featuring everything from saturday morning cartoons that I loved.
Do I want a wedding with the glitz and the glamour, with the drama and the blank check? of course I do. Every little girl somewhere deep inside wants that. That one day where everything is perfect, where you’re the center of attention and nothing but you and your loved one matters. Am I going to get the dream wedding? Probably not. There won’t be a carriage ride through town. There probably wont be a giant room with white curtains and lilies and roses and ivy cascading around us. But at this point in my life, I can honestly say that grabbing a few friends, grabbing a judge, and getting married in the middle of the day on some summer day would be just as magical and romantic to me.
But enough about me. We’re talking about the obsession over the British Royals and the wedding this weekend and how absolutely insane it is for Americans to be so obsessed and fascinated with it. And I think that’s it. It’s a fascination.
The closest we have is our Celebrities in the States and their weddings are huge affairs with glamor and drama and the news covers them like the events of the century. But it’s been 30 years since the last royal wedding, they happen so rarely, how can you not be excited?
On a side note, this is the perfect time for England to start giving a great Public Relations moment for next year’s Olympics. The world is watching you, England, advertise now. Bring in the excitement, the glamor, the thrill and the wow with this wedding and push it for the Olympics.
There will be hundreds and hundreds of tourists in town for the wedding, use this and the Olympics next year, and bring yourself back up to the top. You have the stage this weekend, Don’t screw this up!
Also, congrats to Kate & William!! A wish of Good Luck and Health to you and your future together. Mazel Tov!
