The Glory That Was the Royal Wedding

Along with this journalistic endevour, I am also the news editor of the Severna Park High School newspaper, The Talon. We run a monthly opinion feature called "Point-Counter Point." This month, I was tasked with writing about the Royal wedding. I LOVED IT. Here's the article, I hope you enjoy it!

I have a bone to pick with the English.         

It was once said that “the sun never set on the British Empire,” and for over a century and a half, the colonies of the New World were controlled by the Lobster-backs. When the brave and heroic country we now call America was subject to such tyranny we had no choice but retaliate. We caffeinated our harbors, we burned ships, we threw snowballs. We rocked the boat. And the boat rocked back hard. Really, really hard.

By putting the greatest military the earth had ever seen in other boats, and surprisingly target-esque uniforms, to come over and ask the colonists in a stern voice, “What’s all this then?” The patriots collectively gave a big “Well, this looks fun…” and dug in for the long haul.

Long story short, George Washington and the boys triumphed valiantly, sending the Redcoats back across the pond. And yet those cheeky Brits never apologized. We waited . . . and waited . . . patiently expecting at least a Hallmark card with an “Oops sorry for the oppression and expensive stamps.” But America’s mailbox remained empty.

That is until we received the greatest gift ever given to mankind: The Royal Wedding.

     It was an event like no other. Flowers, a cathedral, the Queen (of England), the Queen (Elton John), Posh Spice, cute little flower girls, screaming hordes of proud, drunken Englishmen . And did you see the hats?? How do those stay on people’s heads? Clearly, there is some sort of Harry Potter-like witchcraft afoot in England. I absolutely loved it. I literally could not look away. It was so unifying.

Thousands of people crowded the streets to see the procession of Prince William and Kate Middleton. And what unified them? True love, a legitimate fairy tale story that couldn’t have been written better by Walt Disney himself. Kate, the lowly commoner, meets the dashingly handsome, vaguely balding Prince William in college.

They fall in love, the have a true romance, he asks her to marry her despite what society thinks, and they proceed to get married in the biggest celebration England has had since David Beckham got lucky and won the island a World Cup. It was a huge display of wealth and power only a monarch could display. It was breathtaking.

It is what I have been waiting for.

Since our economic “down turn,” everything has been recycle this, save that, be cost effective. There is no glamour or glitz in America. Just trashy Hollywood folk rolling up to red carpets in skanky dresses. Kate showed up in a gown with a 6.5 foot train. TO A CHURCH WITH TREES IN IT. I don’t care how many weird dead things Lady Gaga makes clothes out of, that is clutch.

Not to mention she arrived in a Rolls Royce then left in horse drawn carriage. That, my friends, doesn’t happen in an American wedding. If the president’s daughter, assuming she was old enough, were to be married, and pulled something like that, people would be in an uproar about the cost and yell things about “abusing the taxpayer’s dollar.”

Not in England. In England, they flock to London by the thousands to catch a glimpse of the happy couple. We as Americans need that. We need to see such expenditure in such a time of modesty and hard economic times. We need this amusement, this opportunity to live the fairy tale. That is Britain’s gift and apology to us for all that Revolutionary War business. The Royal Wedding is a light at the end of the tunnel for America, a glimpse of what not being in (or at least pretending not to be in) a recession is like.

So, Merry Ol’ England, thank you. Thank you very much for letting us live our fantasies through you.

Consider the score settled.