Wills and Kate

It may be a cliche and a little annoying, but Annalisse and I have succumbed to the royal wedding fever that captured the world for the last couple of weeks, and culminated in the beautiful wedding yesterday of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Yes, we can all rave about how useless the English monarchy is, how they cost the taxpayers of England millions of dollars for "doing nothing." Gadzooks! How can the Royal family spend millions of dollars on wedding when the country is experiencing strict austerity conditions?!

The fact is, many of us are really drawn in by the fairytale romance between a handsome prince and his down-to-Earth, beautiful commoner choice of a bride. After thirty tumultuous years of royal-watching where Prince Charles revealed himself to be a cold, out-of-touch spineless mamby-boy who led his young, shy, inexperienced, emotionally unstable choice of a bride forth like a lamb to slaughter, it's wonderful to see love prevail at last! Who would have thought Chuck and Di's "fairy tale romance" would all turn out as badly as it did? Certainly not me and cousin Jean, who were up at the break of dawn 30 years ago to watch that ill-fated royal wedding.

It seems lessons have certainly been learned from the story of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Prince William and Princess Catherine represent a warm and promising future that I believe will breathe new life into the English monarchy.

There was a touch of sadness when we think back to the tragic circumstances of William and Harry's mom's death, and the memory of those two young boys walking solemnly behind her carriage during the funeral procession. Very sad for those guys. I'm sure it was on their minds especially yesterday.

Back across the pond, Annalisse and I got up at 4:30am and drove over to our friend Chris' place for an early morning viewing of the wedding, complete with English-themed treats like scones, croissant and jam, and tea. There were collective sighs of "Ahhhh!" when Prince William, upon being joined by his bride-to-be at the alter, told her "You look beautiful." (Lip readers, all of us.) After the wedding, Annalisse and I headed home to wait for "the kiss" (scheduled for 8:25am - and there were TWO kisses!) before I dropped her off at school. I took the day off to hang at home with pup, and make a belated Easter dinner, for which Nic and Patrick joined us.

The day was a great success, with warm fuzzys all around!