I Went to a Royal Wedding

I Went To A Royal Wedding Party

I went to a royal wedding party to reminisce with my old friends. A chance to share old memories even though it was four a.m. When I got to the royal wedding party, they all knew my name. It had been a long time since I had been home, I didn’t look the same.

Women came from miles around. Hats and white gloves, they were wearing their Sunday best. One of the middle-aged hens wore a dress from Wal-Mart, must have cost $100.33. She carried a giant pan of box mix angel food cake. There was magic in the air.

Over in the corner, much to my surprise, was one of my old friends, a schoolteacher who was going to have her $19,000 pay frozen for the next two years. In order to make ends meet, her husband was going to have to find a second job just to stay ahead of the bills. They just hoped her 2002 Ford Tempo could make it a few more years.

Nearby at the snack table, hands in bowls of M&Ms, with sponge cake purchased at The Dollar Store, makeup slightly askew – it was the middle of the night after all – thirty and forty-year-old women recalled watching Charles and Diana’s wedding when they were little girls. Even with all of the drama and the excitement, they all agreed, it was a shame. Diana was the people’s princess. What a humanitarian she was, speaking out against landmines and such. I, reaching for the stale lemon cake from Costco, remarked that the man she was sleeping with received much of his family money from weapons dealing, something the press conveniently forgets to mention. They all moved towards the television. I finished my lemon cake and Little Smokies pierced with a toothpick with mini-streamers on the end of it to make it much more elegant.

With the glow of the HD television reflecting off their faces, they sat on that $1,099 six-year-old living room set that the hostess had gotten on sale for 20 percent off at the America Store and a dozen folding chairs purchased at various garage sales. A $60 million dollar wedding for the ages, all at tax payer’s expense. Now to be fair, I am sure that not all of the costs came from the public dole. William’s commission as a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force might have covered a large chunk of the bill. Being royals after all, they would know in a time when government social services are being dramatically cut back and his country was involved in a war in Libya, to force a country to pay that financial burden would be obscene.

More cake was passed around and eaten, not the $80,000 royal wedding cake, but the kind with frosting out of a can and more preservatives than an embalmed body. While it did not look like the picture on the Betty Crocker box, all agreed it was delicious. One of the women rubbed her feet, which hurt from her Payless shoes, $18 on sale, that pinched her feet, but sat upright when Kate appeared in her gorgeous wedding gown. She remarked to the other women there that the dress looked just like the one she purchased at the Wedding Barn for $1,099. The only difference is, I could tell that Kate’s cost more than the house everyone was sitting in. At $434,000, it didn’t have the junky costume jewelry, and was made by designer Sophie Cranston. Plus, no one in the congregation snickered that Kate was wearing white.

Champagne, well not really Champagne as Champagne only comes from the Champagne region of France while this sparkling wine was made in huge vats in California, but was just as good and only costs $5.99 at Trader Joe’s, was passed around. They all clinked glasses and remarked how romantic it was that young William gave Kate his mother’s wedding ring that was worth $136,000. Again, to be fair, the taxpayers only had to shell out $45,000 in 1981 for it. Still, isn’t using a ring from a wedding that ended in divorce like asking to use Sonny Bono’s skis, but I guess it is romantic all the same. The other $1.4 million worth of jewelry Kate was wearing was not so free. But she looked beautiful all the same and that is all that matters.

More cake was called for, finger food and cucumber sandwiches consumed. The middle-aged, mid-western women elegantly dotted the crumbs that stuck to their Walgreen’s lipstick with colorful napkins and paper plates left over from a five-year-olds’ birthday party. Westminster Abbey looked breathtakingly decked out with over $363,000 worth of flowers. Who would not want a church where only your family could get married? You could cure cancer, be the first human being to step on Mars, and save the world from global warming but unless you have a certain inbred DNA sequence and slid out of the right birth canal, there is no way you would be allowed into the building. Just the way Jesus Christ would have intended.

There was Polish and Beck, Richard Branson, Guy Ritchie, Sam Waley-Cohen, the King of Malaysia, Prince Albert of Monaco, Queen Sonja of Norway, even a Tongan King, Tupou V, Sweden’s Princess Victoria, Margaret Thatcher and the last king of Yugoslavia. There is that awful Camilla, who Charles cheated with (please insert boos and hisses here). Oh, to be one of the three hundred guests who get to wine and dine with William and Kate after the wedding. All those lords and ladies, who have never had to work a day in their lives or had to worry about a bill, imagine the conversations. Polo and Prada, be still my heart. Just to stand next to a man who deserves to be a king… Give me a second and I will think of a reason he deserves world attention and to be a king… Let me see… Let me see… I got nothing. Okay, that great receding hairline at twenty-eight. Does that count?

Yet, even though the royal couple is spending over $60 million on their wedding, do not think that the common man’s problems in these currently tough economic times are far from their thoughts. Someone close to the couple has stated, “William and Kate are acutely aware that in these difficult times being seen to take a luxury honeymoon would not look good and send out entirely the wrong signal. Neither has lavish tastes and a domestic location is ideal to ensure they are secure.” Bully for them. Translation into commoner speak: “That darn paparazzi, snapping our pictures.” Instead, thinking of you, rumor has it that if the weather is good, they will stay at the Queen’s 50,000-acre Balmoral estate in Scotland and then escape to somewhere nice and sunny when no one notices. Estimated cost: only $655,000 to the taxpayers. Those two are real humanitarians. Their love for the poor is only second to Mother Teresa’s. Kind of beats your $4,000 honeymoon to Las Vegas where you got that room with the red heart-shaped hot tub, but they must be suffering, having to take time off from William’s efforts to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Wait, I am thinking of someone else. William has his royal duties: going to polo matches, getting a suntan on the royal yacht, handing off future children to nannies, walking through hospitals while pretending to care and opening supermarkets. The family only costs the British people a little over $80 million a year, not counting weddings, several major repair projects that have to be done around the various royal residences, plus security, and taxes the royals do not have to pay.

Conservative estimates of the family’s worth are somewhere between $4 billion and $16 billion. All given to them by the British people except whatever Charles got paid for that book he wrote on holistic medicine. What a bargain! What a beautiful wedding.

One of the women looked at her watch and noticed that they were going to be late for work. Oh, it was so worth it. Here is hoping that rakish Harry’s wedding will be just as breathtaking, and what wonderful cake they could eat next time. It was certainly time for me to leave. It’s all right now. I learned my lesson well. You can’t please everyone, but at least you get to eat cake.