Wedding of the century

Well, I kind of feel like I have to blog about this – it’s billed as the wedding of the century after all. Kate and Will got married today – a beautiful day, a beautiful wedding, a beautiful bride.

Admittedly, I didn’t get up at 5 a.m. to join an estimated 2 billion people in watching the wedding live. But, like millions of others, I’ve watched clips of the wedding on the web and read a few of the many news stories.

I have never considered myself a royalist, but I must admit I am impressed by the whole pomp and ceremony of it all. It actually is a little surreal – especially if you watch the clip of Kate and Will leaving Westminster Abbey after the ceremony - the girl just married her prince. She walks out of the cathedral as the bells ring out. A horse drawn carriage pulls up; they climb inside and drive off to Buckingham Palace. It’s the stuff of fairytales.

It’s fun to watch, but I can’t help wondering about the people behind it all. I don’t mean all the planners and organizers – I mean what it must be like for Kate and Will and the others who have been the subject of such gargantuan public scrutiny today. The couple has been together since 2001 – that’s a long history that I’m sure could not be as picture perfect, fairytale-like as the balcony kiss and horse-drawn procession.

This isn’t to be critical, or even curious in a digging-for-dirt celebrity tabloid way. I just wonder - when they are standing before thousands of people - what is going through their minds?

I don’t think I’m wrong in guessing that every couple has a relationship that is more complex than anyone in their circle knows. We all have our secrets, our personal dynamics which may make us unique – but which would probably mean at very few of us would invite a full-disclosure examination of our intimacies.

And so I wonder, when watching a young couple exchange vows to forever love and cherish one another – what does this actually mean to them? Do they, does anyone, really believe in the beautiful fairytale this ceremony has constructed?