Americans celebrate wedding in pubs, hotels and homes
NEW YORK» From pubgoers in pajamas to merrymakers in finery at a posh hotel, Americans cheered and teared up Saturday as they watched Meghan Markle marry Prince Harry in a royal wedding with trans-atlantic resonance.
People gathered at watch parties — some before dawn — at a Hollywood pub and New York’s swanky Plaza hotel, in oceanfront towns in Florida and spots in the Rocky Mountains, to see an American become part of Britain’s royal family.
If the U.K. and the U.S. have long enjoyed a “special relationship,” this gave it a whole new meaning.
“It was a real-life fairy tale,” said Erin Massa, 34, who watched at a Minneapolis pub. “If someone my age from America can suddenly become a princess, essentially, anything really is possible.”
About 1,000 miles away at a home in Burlington, N.J., Paula Jackson gasped when Markle emerged from the Rolls-royce that brought her to St. George’s Chapel in Windsor.
“I’m just so happy for her,” said Jackson, dressed in a jeweled blazer and tiara. “She will be an example for our young, Africanamerican women.”
At gatherings around the U.S., viewers admired Markle’s beauty and naturalness. But they also marveled at the boundary-breaking union between the 33-year-old prince who has been open about how grief shadowed his life for decades after the 1997 death of his mother, Princess Diana, and the 36-year-old American actress who has spoken out about coming to terms with her identity as the daughter of a black mother and white father.
Some viewers wiped away tears as they watched the wedding from Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles, Markle’s alma mater.
“It’s all my family can talk about,” said 15-year-old sophomore Daniella Bueno, who got up at 3 a.m. to join dozens of students, parents and staffers for the event. “She’s representing our school in such a beautiful way.”
Across the country, Varinda Missett and Ellen Polkes donned hats, gloves and bejeweled high heels and went to the Plaza early in the morning because they “wanted to see a California girl become a princess,” Missett said.
A crowd in fascinators and tiaras gathered for the storied hotel’s first royal wedding viewing party, which came complete with deviled eggs, black pudding, Earl Grey tea butter biscuits and cake pops with champagne and flower liqueur.
“We love a great love story,” said Maureen Farley, the hotel’s director of hospitality. “This surely is one of the best.”
If there was a certain historical irony in Americans celebrating British royalty nearly 242 years after the Declaration of Independence, it had little sway Saturday over Americans who say they were simply rallying around love.