As of today, there are just 16 days to go until the Royal Wedding. 16 days until we get to find out the answers to all the important questions we've been obsessing over for the past few months. What will the dress look like? How will Kate's hair be styled? Will she promise to 'obey' Wills and will Prince Harry get bladdered at the reception?
Before I go any further I feel I must confess that I'm severely ambivalent about both the event of the year and the Royal Family. I hope the couple will be very happy together and that they have a great day. I'm over the moon to be getting an extra day off work. It's the rest of it I can do without. Including getting in on all the twee souvenir-purchasing, bunting-hanging, flag-waving aspect of it all purely because it's the next logical step on the road to retro-patriotic materialistic heaven (see also 'make do and mend', reissues of 1950s lifestyle manuals).
Yes, you read that correctly. I've got Royal Wedding Fatigue. And with good reason.
Every day at least one of my friends from the blogging world tweets that they've had just about enough of tedious Royal Wedding-themed products and emails from PRs. You can't open a newspaper without seeing a story speculating about the big day (Kate wants to wear flowers in her hair! Camilla says "Hell to the no, you will wear a tiara and you will like it.") And poor Kate can't leave the house without someone comparing her to Princess Diana.
I can't help but feel that this is how it's going to be for the foreseeable future. Kate may be 'every inch the modern princess' but she's destined to have her every move photographed and displayed in a tabloid next to Diana doing or wearing something similar. I'm sure she's thrilled to have to live up to the example set by not only the nation's 'Queen of Hearts', but her future husband's deceased mother, who died during a somewhat dubious encounter with the press.
Okay, so it's kind of predictable that the media is going to compare the two, but let's stop it from bordering on the creepy, guys. As we were reminded last week, speculation over whether or not Diana was a virgin reached such a frenzy during her engagement that her uncle ended up publicly announcing her 'intact' status to the nation. Obviously, this prompted journalists to ask members of the public just how they feel about the fact that Kate is probably, you know, sexually active. And funnily enough, no-one seemed to care.
It's also obvious that Kate's going to have to put up with endless comments about not only her clothes, but her weight as well. The press already has knives out regarding her body shape due to the fact she may or may not have lost a few pounds in the run-up to the wedding. I'm sure the minute she gets caught on camera inclining her head downwards they'll be poking fun at the merest hint of a double chin.
I nearly spat my breakfast out the other day watching a lengthy debate - with special guests - on BBC Breakfast about the fact that William has decided not to wear a wedding ring.I'm fully aware that it's only in the past 50 years that men have started to wear them - and also that it'a particularly uncommon among upper-class men, apparently. But like many wedding-based dramas, some people are determined to make it all about 'tradition', keeping the spirit of those days when marriage was more about men possessing women alive.
"I am delighted by Prince William's decision. I have always regarded the practice of men wearing wedding rings as prissy and effeminate," wrote Harry Phibbs in (you guessed it) the Daily Mail.
He denounced what he sees as the absurb political correctness of people who expect men display their 'off-limits' status in the same way as their wives, going on to say that he hopes Kate will be promising to 'obey', so keeping the natural order of things intact.
Hopefully Kate won't let life in the limelight get to her - she's had a fair amount of practice now and luckily for her, she seems to be staying out of the sort of 'scandals' the tabloids love. It's just depressing to see that even though we never stop hearing about how times have changed since Charles and Diana got hitched, particularly in terms of press coverage, it's obvious that in many ways, things are very much the same.
This post originally appeared at BitchBuzz. Image via waldopepper's Flickr.
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