As the royal wedding approaches, I find myself thinking back to the other wedding 30 years ago that I helped cover as a young reporter in London and wondering from afar how the extravaganza on April 29 — and, beyond that ritual, the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton — will differ.
During the summer of 1981, all of England seemed to have wedding fever, even my socialist pals. And as an intern working in the London bureau of an American newspaper, I was swept up in the excitement of covering a big story in great detail — which is how I learned all about organza.
“So organza is the name of the designer?” was my clueless follow-up question during an interview with Lady so-and-so for a fashion story on what wedding guests would be wearing.
This is a couple who appear to have a relatively normal relationship, who’ve had rough patches over the years, who know that marriages can fail — and, in the case of Kate’s parents, succeed . “They’re going into it with their eyes wide open,” observes Peggi, my 50-something hairstylist.
At the very least, the son of the “People’s Princess” seems more certain than his dad about whatever love is. “Just compare the engagement photos,” says my 26-year-old stepdaughter Emma, a single career gal in Chicago. On the face of it, the cuddly Wills-and-Kate pose is chillingly like the Charles-and-Di pose, down to Diana’s engagement ring that Kate now wears. But William and Kate look like they like each other, my stepdaughter thinks. William’s arms are wrapped snuggly, even protectively, around Kate.
My British friends report that this wedding is drawing less attention there than the 1981 wedding but is widely welcomed as a “happy story,” especially given all the other gloomy news . After the Charles-and-Di disaster, we may be less likely to believe in weddings stage-managed by Buckingham Palace. But we still want a happily-ever-after outcome for this attractive couple, especially this duty-bound young man who, as a boy, loved and lost his mother.
Yet, so much has changed since 1981. Today, the British monarchy seems like even more of an anachronism, notes my friend Merida, a London bureau friend now living in New York. And with all that’s going on in the world, it’s hard to imagine the press committing the resources lavished on Charles and Diana’s wedding. In 1981, thousands of Brits camped out along the wedding-process route
