A Royal Wedding! Is that what we need?
I only met Prince William’s mother, Princess Diana, once and that was in Buckingham Palace at a reception for Queen’s Award winners in 1991. I should have met Mrs. Thatcher that day, but one of her ministers had died so she had more important things to do than meeting me!
Some things stand out from that party. Obviously, the setting was magnificent and the service was up to the highest standards. But afterwards as you thought about it, nothing that was served was extravagant, and anybody could make a party run as smoothly, by just being good and watching the small details. The drink flowed well and a couple of souls, were a bit merry as they left.
But what really stood out was the treatment of Diana by the guests. To say she was hounded would not be out of hand. But then she was going to marry Prince Charles in the summer and everybody wanted to talk to her. We didn’t, but we had quite a very long conversation with the Duke of Kent.
Diana really wasn’t up to coping with this type of do and it was good to see that Katherine Middleton is a much stronger personality, who can probably hold her own in the sort of receptions and dinners, that she will be expected to attend.
Also too, she’s marrying one of her generation and peer group from University, so they’ve probably done a lot of the things that might be difficult in future. Diana didn’t have that luxury. But marrying someone you’d met at university certainly helped give us nearly forty years of reasonably happy marriage.
So here’s hoping for them!
But I won’t be watching or listening!
I did notice that they’re using Diana’s ring for an engagement ring. Let’s hope that this theme passes through the plans for the wedding. Make it a happy and fun affair, but do make it in keeping with today’s austerity.
That way it might help to lift the gloom and bring in lots of tourists, who’ll spent money. It wll be a good test for the Olympics in 2012.
The Anonymous Widower 
I think Diana was very very young when she married Charles, a much older man, with a past. She was 21 just days before her wedding, and I really believe she was very naive about what she was doing, she fell in love with the fairytale. She also was not Charles’ intellectual equal,and I think that matters in a successful marriage.
Kate MIddleton is a lot older, and I suspect a lot more worldly wise, she has bided her time, made sure she knows what she is doing by marrying into the royal family. And they were are university together, and are on a much more equal footing intellectually. Add to that the fact that William has had a much less closeted childhood than his father, and met and mixed with far more ordinary people, and done more ordinary things, especially when his mother was alive.
So I wish them all the best, and I really think they stand a good chance of be happy.
Comment by liz | November 16, 2010 |