WEDDING EXPENSIVE BUT, LIKE, REALLY IMPORTANT
Last Saturday morning, heard all across the country, “the royal wedding is on TV, the royal wedding is on,” screamed by sons who could never quite throw a spiral.
As a royal wedding correspondent, I had to watch the royal wedding. And, my youngest daughter has her wedding in November, so we all watched, which I hated. The royals spent $40 million on their wedding, and now I am the jerk who has to bring her Adairsville, Ga., wedding in at .0025 percent of that. Thanks a lot, Meghan Markle from the B-level television show “Suits!”
A few observations about the royal wedding: The father of the bride was a no-show. I can only speculate that he saw the $40 million tab and escaped to Mexico.
In what the media reminds us is the most racist society of all time, the wedding was of an African-American woman who was once married and had a black preacher and choir. This will mark the first time a black American becomes royalty, if you do not count Queen Latifah, Prince or Duke Ellington.
All Meghan Markle had to do to marry Prince Harry is renounce her past religions, and be baptized into King Henry VIII’s Church of England — a religious order which has overseen the execution of many royal wives over the past few hundred years. The risk really pales in comparison to what she had to do in Hollywood for a role in a Harvey Weinstein movie.
The only video feed was from the BBC. And be careful googling BBC videos! But the British Broadcasting Co. fed the narrative to the 5,000 reporters there. As a shock to few, Fox News sent Shep Smith to cover the wedding. He pointed out that it was a surprise that Prince Harry kept his beard. Shep is also a man who has kept a beard for many years, so his insight was valuable.
The newlyweds said they would accept no gifts. Which was annoying to me because I had already gotten them one of those nice Crock-Pots with a retractable cord and three settings. The couple instead wanted donations to the Invictus Games, a charity for injured war vets. If there is one thing, other than this wedding, that draws Great Britain and the USA together, it is expensive, intractable and unwinnable wars of occupation in some of the worst hellholes in the world.
We will always have that. I guess we Americans are fascinated with royal weddings. Hollywood stars were there. The only thing I could compare it to in America would be the Westminster Dog Show, but with more tail sniffing. We do not have public spectacles like that here, unless you count the congressional grilling of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and baseball’s steroid user Jose Canseco.
No politicians were invited. Which is always refreshing. Trump was predictably mad, and vowed not to invite any of the royals to his next three weddings.
Yet events like this bring the world together with more than 3 billion people said to have watched. Even troubled socialist and communist countries like Venezuela and North Korea celebrated by ordering one of their two remaining bushels of rice be thrown for the blessed occasion.
The wedding broke tradition and was held on a Saturday. Because it was a short engagement, Windsor Castle, it turns out, was already booked for a bat mitzvah that Sunday.
So, in watching the biggest gathering of hats the world has seen in a decade, I walked away entertained and amused. I read a study that shows countries run by monarchies are more stable, wealthy and happier than others. And they clearly throw better weddings.
And I will admit, I would have loved to have been at the wedding and the series of after-parties that night. In many ways, they are just like us. Just imagine what it would be like to see the queen get a little toasted and dance to “Uptown Funk” and then do the electric slide with Camilla. Precious moments.
Contact Ron Hart at Ron@ RonaldHart.com or on Twitter.