Love Actually - Signing Up as Sonoma County's Royal Wedding Correspondent

A flash of Diana's saphire engagement ring on the finger of her son, Prince William's newly announced bride-t0-be, certainly brings back a flood of memories for we Brits abroad.

I was in my mid teens when the blushing Lady Diana Spencer wed Prince Charles in Saint Paul's Cathedral, London, almost 30 years ago. I remember watching the pomp and ceremony in the family room at my childhood home, too far from the nation's capital to join the throngs of crazed royalists lining the streets for a glimpse of the fairytale start of what would unravel into an unimaginably tragic pairing.

When Diana died in Paris in the summer of 1997 it was night time in Europe. I heard the news (before my own friends and family in England) from a fellow ex-pat on a sun drenched late afternoon in Northern California - a world away from the same streets of London that would fill to overflow with mourners for Di's funeral.

America watched. And mourned. And followed the notorious British Media's lead in large part in respectfully leaving the motherless princes out of the limelight.

Second in line to the throne, Prince William is reported to have proposed to long time love (and college girlfriend), a seemingly perfectly poised, Kate Middleton in a romantic setting in Kenya recently. An official announcement by Clarence House and the couple has set royal watchers around the world all a fluster. 

Speculations on a Spring/Summer 2011 royal wedding point to a London locale, though likely not Saint Paul's. Three decades on, the fairytale aspect is being downplayed, it appears, in universal support of not entirely freaking out the future Princess.

I've been planning a trip to Britain next summer and hope now that the timing coincides. Love them or loathe the ideals of monarchy, reporting for you live from London on the modern Royal Wedding of the Century, would be my pleasure.

 

 

Comments

[lara]

You have my vote for official correspondent, I would love to read those posts!

[Charene]

I'm looking forward to hearing the news from your point of view.

[Frank Simpson]

Anvil Adams would be more than happy to do the phorographic work ;-)

[Frances]

I'm already sensing a more restrained response from the media to the royal couple's announcement - hopefully we have learned a monumental lesson in resisting any celebrity-style hysteria. I think that William and Kate have set their own pace and sense of decorum and will bring a new era of class and respect to the British royals.

[Frances]

I'm sure we could trust Anvil not to get too carried away, Paparazzi-style. Learn more about the Petaluma based Instituto de Vino's new intern here: http://frankpetaluma.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/camera-obscura-futura-lens-see-the-future/

[Frances]

Email comment from Linda reads: "I'm glad you'll be our royal wedding correspondent. I remember exactly where I was for Prince William's mother's wedding and the night she died. She died the last day we were had our house in Petaluma. We were finishing up cleaning everything out of the house. So sad, I felt so guily for buying magazines when she was on the cover. She was so lovely, though who could resist?

I look forward to your posts. And here's to a marriage truly based on mutual love."