Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Royal Wedding: Selected Highlights (in Pictures!)

Right from the start, I should probably say, I didn't watch the Royal Wedding. I mean, I met my girlfriend for drinks after work on Friday and then we went and watched the footy. Things which, for me, are probably more important than pretty much anything, Royal Wedding or otherwise.

And I'm not a monarchist. Don't get me wrong, the younger generation of Royals seem a pretty inoffensive bunch, and the older brigade have given us many years of comic good service, but if Oliver Cromwell's revolution had taken hold and they didn't exist in their current form, well...

But something I do like is an event. Particularly one that causes a lot of people and media organisations to plaster photo galleries all over the internet. And when it comes to this sort of thing, you probably can't do much better than a Royal Wedding. There's something about the lavish, fairytale spectacle of it all that spurs on the hordes of the easily fascinated (Royal Watchers) to provide endless material to the even larger hordes of the bored and easily distracted (people much like your correspondent).

Presented below, then, is my selection of Royal Wedding photo highlights, with an emphasis on the less conventional and overlooked:

ANTI ROYALS


To be slightly perverse, we may as well start with those Britons who didn't care for the wedding so much. A street party in London was organised by the anti-royal 'Republic' movement, allowing gentlemen like the one pictured the opportunity to fulfill his boyhood dream of dressing up like a troll on Royal Wedding day. Although the anti-wedding party's success shouldn't be overtstated as only small numbers turned out, prompting one pro-royal commentator to note: Even free food couldn;t get that bunch to turn up.



DALEK


More traditional was the type of patriotic support displayed by this chap here, although 'traditional' may seem like an odd word to see in a sentence describing a photo entitled 'Dalek.'



GLAMP


But I'm resonably sure that neither of the people listed in the first two photos - nerdy royal and weirdo anti royal alike - would be able to afford the tent displayed in this photo. For the asking price to camp out on Clapham Common for the night before the wedding in this little number was 3500 pound (wine included). Sorry, did I say 'camp'? This experience was so expensive that it actually added a new word to our language: Glamping.



GLAMPING ENVY?


Or, maybe, an ex girlfriend of William's thinking: 'That could be me! That could be me! That could be me!'



ODDS


People who have criticised the AFL recently for allowing betting to take over the sport better hope that Demetriou and co. don't see this photo. I mean, it's obvious what the thought process there would be: 'Geez, think of all the opportunities we've been missing out on! We haven't even given people the opportunity to bet on what fruity colours will be on the away team's jumper!'



QUEEN vs. MASK


For anyone that did have a flutter on the colour of the Queen's hat, the winning punt was... Yellow! Which prompted at least one pundit in the blogosphere to make the above comparison.



ANDREW


Also among the assembled guests was Prince Andrew, doing a fair impression of a forgotten man. Judged by the look on his face here, he may well have been thinking back to his own Royal Wedding, when he surprised everyone by actually marrying Fergie and not going 'Just kidding' at the last minute,as had been inspected. Yes, he may have been thinking back to that fatal miscalculation... or...



... MAYBE...


... he'd just spied the stunningly awful hat that one of the offspring from that union was wearing.



THE ROYAL COUPLE


No such problem with the Royal couple, however, with Wills and Kate looking elegant and polished. Neither of which will prevent us from ignoring them and stating that the guardsmen standing behind them reminds us of this.



SHOES


Of course, volumes and volumes were written about the Royal couple, and in particular what Kate was wearing. Right down to the 'Sun' newspaper in England producing a whole section just on her outfit, broken down into sub sections analysing each bit in turn. Here, we look at Kate's shoes, which were designed by Alexander McQueen with some additional stitching provided by the Royal Seamstresses. The 'Sun's' verdict? The shoes were... nice.



PEZ


Hard to say though, if the shoes were incorporated into this piece of memorabilia. What we can say, though, is that once you've been immortalised in the form of a 'Pez' dispenser, you know you've made it.



JELLY BEAN


Actually, let me retract that last statement. When people start seeing your image in a Jelly Bean, and trying to sell that bean on eBay, that's when you know you've REALLY made it.

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