Oh, Happy Day!

I blame Friday's early-morning festivities for my lack of posts these past few days. If I've learned anything recently, it's that even the slightest adjustment to my sleep/wake schedule can really mess me up. Truth be told, I've been waaaay off my normal routine every evening since Thursday -- it's not all because of the royal wedding. My husband was traveling Thursday - Saturday nights, and then again last night, and when he's gone I usually end up reading or watching TV deep into the wee hours. I don't know why I do this -- maybe it's some sort of innate "rebellion reflex" where subconsciously I'm thinking, "Woo hoo, I can sleep in tomorrow because his alarm's not going to go off! I'm gonna be naughty and stay up until I can't keep my eyes open!" Who knows.

But anyway, what happened was that on Thursday night, since I hadn't been exposed to any of the royal wedding hype up until that point, I decided to watch a bunch of specials on BBC America until 1 AM. Then I set my alarm for 4 AM. When it sounded, I was very much out of it and kind of forgot what was going on and didn't know why my phone was chirping. Luckily for me, there's a TV in my bedroom (yeah, I know that's bad feng shui or whatever), so really all I had to do was click my remote control's "On" button.

I chose 4 AM because ten minutes later was when the first sighting of Will and Harry was supposed to take place as they left for Westminster Abbey. And believe you me, the moment the TV began glowing, I snapped into full consciousness. I was immediately captivated by the whole thing, and once the princes came into view with their snappy outfits (I don't know what I was expecting, but something about Will's bright red jacket was so cool to me -- it just made it all so real), I was SOLD.

The next two and a half hours absolutely flew by. I had been checking Twitter early on, but became annoyed rather quickly by anyone who was making snotty comments (mostly about some of the wedding guests, but still), and so I decided that I would just savor the experience by myself and refrain from seeing what anyone else thought about the event. The only tip I took from Twitter was to switch from BBC America to CNN because word was that Piers Morgan was fairly entertaining. I had never seen him or heard him speak before, but I did in fact get a kick out of his commentary. And, of course, he was with my man Anderson Cooper, so it was a win-win.

During the carriage procession I got nervous because it looked like several of the horses in the parade were quite antsy. They were bucking and seemed agitated and whatnot. So I wasn't sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me or if I was finally succumbing to lack-of-sleep delirium when I could've sworn I saw one running like hell up the side of the procession, sans rider. But none of the CNN peeps said anything about it, so I chalked it up to a hallucination.

But it really happened! I'm not crazy, hooray! You can see a great shot of the runaway horse at the very beginning of this video, and then there's the opposite angle (showing how close it was to the royal carriage) here. That horse was like, "Get me outta this mess, yo!"

After all of that there was a 50-minute break before the happy couple would emerge on the Buckingham Palace balcony, which was the part I had really wanted to see. So I decided to take a nap and set my alarm for about 5 minutes before the big moment. That was a bad idea, because I was so tired that I hit snooze when the alarm went off... and then the next thing I know, I'm opening my eyes to Kate and Will and their entourage waving from the balcony, and the commentators complaining about what a lame kiss it was. And I was like, "WHAT?!?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME -- I MISSED IT?!?!!?"

So then I rewound the Tivo (I had never turned the TV off, just had it muted while I dozed) and watched the first kiss... then forwarded through to the point where I'm pretty sure I actually caught the second kiss -- the one in all the papers -- live or almost-live. And the funny thing is, even though that was the part I thought I had wanted to see so badly, now that it's all said and done, I have to say that my favorite parts of the whole experience were:

1) First seeing the princes in the car -- I definitely got that fluttery "thrill" feeling in my chest when everything kicked off with their ride to the Abbey,
2) When Will and Harry got out of the car, walked into the Abbey together... and then later when they walked into the private room behind the gate once they were in the Abbey. I realized that what I had really been wanting to see was both of them -- side by side, happy, and "OK" -- on Will's big day,
3) Every time Will would give one of his conspiratorial side-smiles to Kate,
4) The breathtaking overhead shots of Westminster Abbey. Even though I've been inside and was in awe of the building when I was physically there, nothing beats those shots that looked down on the intersection of the two aisles -- gorgeous,
5) Harry in the kiddie carriage -- classic,
6) The whole carriage procession in general -- so Cinderella-ish, and,
7) Will driving himself and Kate in the Aston Martin with all the balloons tied to its bumper -- I missed this part live, but watched videos of it after. I just thought it was so cool and really reflected the spirit of the couple.

All in all I thought the royal wedding was one of the most fascinating, joyous spectacles I've ever seen, and I am so, so glad I watched it. Then, of course, came Sunday evening's big news, which kept me up very late once again (also totally worth it). A banner weekend indeed. As my friend Miss M put it best, "The world is on an upswing."

- e