kiss me Kate...

     On April 29th along with the Royals, it was my daughter’s anniversary.  Eleven years.  Boy how time flies, seems just like yesterday I was trying to sell a kidney to pay for her wedding. I had seen Diana (Di to us in the loop...)and Charles’ wedding all those years ago….set the alarm, woke ridiculously early and watched it with my young daughters who could care less about weddings or even boys at that point. We laid on the bed and watched a small black and white TV and marveled at how long (and wrinkled) her train was. I remember attempting to explain to them that the back of the dress was called a ‘train’ as they voiced concern that a locomotive would be following her down the aisle. Fast forward to April 29th 2011...I DVR’d it, got up at a normal hour, pressed play and watched the wedding of Kate and William alone. The little girls who had joined me last time are all grown up with children of their own and I can assure you, none of them would mistake a ‘train’ for….well, a train!  Children have gotten way smarter!

The TV I watched it on has 52 inches of high definition color where zoomed shots were probably taken from two blocks away. A quick sighting of Prince Charles, father of the groom, and I thought wow he looks good…his marriage to Camilla must be a good thing….kept him young looking and he certainly has more hair than his son. William that is, Harry has hair like a poodle…must take after his moms side. The wedding under way, the car pulled up and the bride emerged…her face obscured by her veil. As she pulled and tugged at her train to free it from the car, along came several valets and bridesmaids to help her with the 25 foot wrinkled mess. And I thought…it must be some British tradition. To have a wrinkled wedding dress. Diana had it too. And the Queen, she looked pretty good as well…and then it dawned on me. I was watching a recap of the Charles and Diana wedding from 1981. (I though my high def was looking a little grainy) While Diana dragged herself down the aisle I went and made a cup of coffee. By the time I returned, like Dorothy stepping out of her Kansas doorway into Oz, the high def-I-can-see-every-blemish-and facial-hair-you-have…..was back…and so was Kate and William….and a much older Queen….and the father of the groom was suddenly an old man.

Kate’s dress was beautiful and not at all wrinkled. An Alexander McQueen fashion house design. Even after a successful suicide last year, McQueen is making money. Her sister/bridesmaid wore a simple and elegant skin tight painted on white dress with about a hundred buttons down the back. Good thing she was as slim as her sister or that could have been one button popping disaster waiting to happen. I bet that would have kept the Royals hopping! William, though sporting the friar tuck balding pattern looked handsome in his pajamas dress uniform. (do the Brits not believe in tuxedos, vests, cummerbunds??) I wore a hat to my wedding. So did my bridal party. Ok they looked more like bonnets, but they were hats….I like to think I was way ahead of my time. At Kate and William’s everyone wore a hat. Some quite stylish and some frighteningly reminiscent of a side show I once saw in Coney Island. All the newspapers were heralding the hats as the best part of the British tradition. Then someone in the editorial department surely missed the one that looked like a bow or was it a pretzel? Sarah Ferguson (Fergie to us in the loop…) didn’t get an invite so it was up to her two daughters to embarrass the family a tad more and they did her proud with that hideous headgear.

They showed people singing, people pretending to sing and those that just held the song book in case the camera panned around to them. They showed Elton John singing. His partner next to him. Who was watching the newly adopted baby I wondered? The men all wore very colorful military uniforms that I have never seen on any battlefield in any country. (have to admit I haven’t been to many battlefields lately though) The Queen wore canary yellow. With a matching hat of course. And held onto her pocketbook like she was in a Brooklyn mall.

The bride and groom looked both radiant and nervous. I left them reciting there vows and William nervously trying to get a too small ring onto Kates finger, to make another cup of coffee and some toast. This whole British wedding thing was making me hungry for tea and crumpets or even scones….but I had to settle for two pieces of pumpernickel bread and a second cup of coffee.

I put on the TV in real time. I got to see them kiss. Well…peck. The crowd went wild. They pecked again. Again the crowd went wild. And for some reason all I could think of was when the newly chosen Pope came out on the balcony of the Vatican, his ring got more lip action from his bishops then Kate got from William. (Wills to us in the loop…)

I turned off the TV. I had had enough of the Royals for one day….and besides my pumpernickel toast was ready and my coffee getting cold.