The Royal Wedding

I'll admit it - I was up at 5:00am to watch the royal wedding, and yes, I was also up to watch the wedding of Charles and Diana.  The differences between the two are profound.  Charles and Diana barely knew each other when they wed; William and Kate have known each other for almost a decade.  Charles was 14 years older than Diana; Kate is slightly older than William, but for all intents and purposes they are the same age.  Do we even need to talk about the engagement interview?  Did Charles really think a good response to the question, "Are you in love?" was "Yes, whatever that means."  The most profound difference, however, lies in the weddings themselves.  Diana was a fairy tale princess bride, full of crinoline, lace, poufs and rosettes.  Even on her wedding day, she overshadowed her groom.   It was surely a sign of things to come.  Kate was simply elegant, in an understated way.  She complemented her groom and did not compete with him.  The wedding itself was simple and elegant in a way Charles and Diana's was not.
When you look at British royal weddings in general, you learn something about couples.  With the exception of Queen Elizabeth's wedding to Prince Phillip, not one of the fairy tale weddings has created a wedding that lasts.  By contrast, the simple ceremonies, where the bride and groom complement each other, and where the ceremony reflects the personalities of the couple and not the needs of the public, have all been successful.  It's not just royals.  I can't begin to tell you the number of people who have had over the top weddings who end up in my office.  By contrast, people like my grandparents who eloped after one day and stayed married for 63 years, and my parents who were married by a judge in chambers and just celebrated their 51st year of marriage, rarely see the inside of my office.  Why is that?  I think it's because the latter understand the true symbolism of a wedding as expressing the couple's commitment to each other, and the former loses sight of that meaning in favor of public displays and opinion.  A marriage that starts with a meaningful but not necessarily ostentatious wedding contains a couple that has thought about the reasons they wed, and the conscious understanding of those reasons stays with them when the fairy dust wears off.  A wedding is a only a day; it either produces a public show and only that, or it reflects a deeper bond between the couple.  Which wedding would you like?