My tuppence on The Wedding

About the Royal Wedding.

I missed it.

Due to my stellar math skills, including but not limited to the complete inability to do subtraction, I thought with time zone differences the wedding would be on Saturday morning.

Add to that the fact that I don't really have TV (we have an actual television but it only gets a couple of channels and it is far away in the playroom and rarely gets watched) so I had no idea when the whole thing was going down. I am the only American who was not sick of William and Kate's wedding before it happened.

Imagine my surprise first thing Friday morning when I opened my laptop and there was Kate Middleton in her wedding dress. My brain simply couldn't figure out how that was even possible. Next came the scream (mine) heard round the world. I never miss a Royal anything that is televised. And a wedding? I was thoroughly anticipating it. My dismay was palpable, shall we say.

Fortunately I made it to the TV in time to see the two anemic kisses on the balcony.

Mister and I left around lunchtime on Friday to drive to Houston for a wedding on Saturday morning. We had decided to stretch it out into a weekend getaway we were lucky enough to get a hotel room with a separate living area. Which meant that I could sit in the fluffy bed and watch wedding coverage all day (yay cable TV!) without fighting someone for the remote. Mister finally dragged me out of the room at 9 pm to get some dinner.

Here is my run-down of the significant aspects of the wedding:

The dress. I loved Kate's dress. Please, please let this be the end of the era of strapless dresses. I'm sorry to burst your bubble if you wore (or are planning to wear) one. But they all look alike. Take away sleeves and a neckline and there's not a lot left to be unique. You basically have two choices: a full skirt or something mermaidy? Sash or no sash? It doesn't matter if you get it at David's Bridal or have it custom made at Vera Wang--they look pretty much the same to everybody but you (plus, I don't want to see your strappy tan lines, freckly sun damage or chubby arms.)

I hope Kate's design will also influence the complete yawner that is the Mormon wedding dress: short sleeves, scoop neck, princess seams and a full skirt. I think that every Mormon bride is actually passing around the same dress. I mean no offense because chances are you wore one too. But it's boring.

The Bouquet. This was the weak link. I adore lillies-of-the-valley. I even considered having them in my bouquet. Until I realized that they look completely dull from far away. Especially a whole bouquet of them. Sorry Kate. I think she should have made a teensy bit more of a statement. The whole idea of white flowers seems strange to me. Of course, I like any excuse to have color. If I ever get married again (not anticipating, but you never know), I'm going for big and gorgeous peonies; now those are a fantastic flower for a wedding! (Also, did you notice there were no flowers in the church? Lame!)

The music. Walking down the aisle to that gorgeous boys' choir? Swoon! Such an unusual choice. I loved watching all those people who you don't normally think of as church-going, singing hymns (ahem, Victoria Beckham).

The service. I really liked how spiritual it was. It's nice to be reminded of the seriousness of marriage and it's vows.

The Bridesmaids/Flower girls. I don't think members of the bridal party should match the bride. It may be common to have everybody wearing white in England but I don't like it one bit (see my afore-mentioned love of color under all circumstances). I like girls in cheerful, impractical dresses they will never wear again. Love the flowers in the hair, though. You never see that in America (unless you went to my wedding).

The hair. I nearly cried with joy when I saw that Kate had her hair down. I think every bride should have long wavy hair. It's just the loveliest, most romantic look. I can't think of enough adjectives to tell you how much I hate that severe, ultra-shellacked updo with curls that every bride seems to wear.

I think Kate was beyond gorgeous. Her make-up was natural and lovely. Everything was so understated which is refreshing after seeing so many brides try to out-princess each other. Well, now we've seen what a real princess chooses, and aside from the coach (or was it a barouche?) it's all quite tasteful.

Aside from the lack or color, I give the wedding a huge thumbs-up. Now the guests are quite another matter altogether. We'll leave Anastasia and Druzilla Beatrice and Eugenie for another day.