With the Royal Wedding just over a week away, some people may be wondering, what's the big deal? Why so many tabloid articles? Why is TLC devoting a week of air time to all this hot air? I'm here to tell you -- I get it.
1) Kate Middleton is gorgeous and will make a beautiful bride at a big, shiny wedding.
2) The royal family has had it's share of bad luck; it's hard to look away from this royal romance.
3) Kate Middleton is "normal" and a "commoner" -- and the first (soon-to-be) princess to hold a college degree.
She is a modern princess. I understand the obsession. I will get up at 5 a.m. on April 29 to watch the wedding. (But I'm not so obsessed that I will bid on the jelly bean resembling Kate Middleton's face that's being sold on eBay; it really does look like her, though.)
I won't spend a lot of time comparing Princess Catherine (as Kate wants to be called) with Princess Diana, but suffice it to say, many girls in the 21st century will relate better to Kate than they ever did to Lady Di. Kate has a college degree (which no other British queen or queen-to-be has had), she's the daughter of former airline employees who became self-made (rather then blue-blood) millionaires, she's comfortable in her own skin (a must in this era of reality TV and non-stop paparazzi), and she has her own hopes and dreams (she has worked in fashion and reportedly wants to launch her own children's clothing line).
She'll have her share of stuffy tea times and fancy, wifely obligations to Prince William and the monarchy, but she seems (fingers crossed) like she'll still be her own woman. She may not fulfill all our wildest feminist dreams as a role model, but she's a step in the right (or at least "real") direction on the royal family tree. Those bloodlines could use something new in the mix! (That's fun for us Americans to say, anyway!)
Will you tune in for the "wedding of the century" next Friday?