Things learned from the royal wedding

No, I was not up at 4am central time to witness the beginning of someone's married life. I was up at 6:30 am, however, to go teach about drugs to a bunch of unruly high school freshmen. When I got back to my room at 10, I still had an hour and a half before my first class, so of course I watched choice selections from the wedding on TheRoyalChannel on YouTube (it exists, really.) They had 2-6 minute clips of "highlights" from the wedding and also an hour-long video of the ceremony itself. I watched a bunch of the clips and then skipped around in the ceremony video. Between these videos and some Googling, I feel like I basically got all the royal wedding stuff needed and also some sleep. Win.

I had a lot of thoughts on the royal wedding. Some are encapsulated below:

• Westminster Abbey looks a lot like UChicago--or, should, I say, it's the other way around
• Our Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, however, doesn't have trees (?!?) in it
• Anglican wedding ceremonies are remarkably boring
• That was a very nice-looking dress, but the train was a bit much
• The maid of honor almost looked better than Kate did
• William is not that attractive. Neither is his brother.
• Charles was, is, and will always be old. Just old. (I remember when I was young I used to think that Charles was married to Elizabeth, instead of being her son....)
• Elizabeth also seems eternally old. Professional dress-suits for the win?
• Okay, British, you win when it comes to hats.
• Walking all the way to the altar in Westminster Abbey is probably good exercise
• That music was pretty good, especially the fanfare troop
• Little kid attendants at a royal wedding, lulz
• Royals seriously need shorter names. William Arthur Philip Louis. And then Catherine Elizabeth. Haha name disparity.
• Again, yeah, this Anglican business is kind of boring
• Ring almost didn't go on finger oooooooh almost drama. (According to my male RH: "If you get married, put the finger through the ring, not the ring on the finger." We'll keep that in mind, thanks.)
• Carriage rides and car rides lololololol
• Apparently Today had a "countdown to the kiss" clock onscreen for a few minutes? Crazy.
• Speaking of kisses, that one was kind of lame. Come on, William, give us something to look at!
• Speaking further of kisses--greatest picture ever:

Catherine and Prince William in 2011.

 Perhaps unsurprisingly, many pictures of the kiss from around the web crop out the damsel in distress in the lower left hand corner. I think the human factor of the entire spectacle is drastically improved by having her in the shot, however. But yeah, not such a fan of that kiss. It's not bad at all, just kind of a let down from whatever expectations I think people had. Then again, William's parents had a far more interesting time of it.

Diana Spencer and Prince Charles in 1981

Thirty years ago Charles wasn't old; who'da thunk it? I think Charles looks better than his son does in their respective wedding day photos. But then again, Charles and Diana weren't exactly a paragon of wedded bliss, now, were they? Interesting side note: my only memory of the existence of Diana is the day she died. I was playing with my brand new beanie baby knockoff toy (an orange fish) when I heard that a princess, of sorts, had died. Cheers to being born in 1991?

Congrats to William and Kate--may their marriage be far happier and more successful than his parents' was.