Friday, February 25, 2011

It's in the Mail....


 I read in the paper that 1,900 invitations were sent out this week for the royal wedding. I'm sure it was just an oversight - but Dr. van der Stevejinck and I have not recieved our invitations to William and Kate's wedding. I'll be checking my mailbox every day. In the meantime I will be rummaging through my closets for suitable wedding attire. 

32 comments:

  1. I have been waiting for mine too. Keep in mind, it takes a while for the mail to make it across the pond.
    All I have to say is that if the Obamas get an invitation I will be really upset. After his repeated insults and selling UK defense secrets I am surprised the UK is even keeping communication lines open.

    You. Do. Not. Send. Back. The. Bust. Of. Churchill.

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  2. Veering carefully away from the rocky political shoals...All I can say is 1900 guests?! I am so glad I will never rate a suffocating event like that. 1900 people whose names I may or may not know--some of whom I'm bound to loathe...on what should be an intimate-ish occasion. (Though rules are different for heads of state, I grant.) It's events like that that allow for things like Camilla (who I have no personal beef with) to be in the viewing section of her ex (ish)-boyfriend's wedding...(shudder)

    P.S. I am so catching it on TV!

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  3. P.P.S. Why if she is Catherine, does she go by Kate with a K? Riddle me that...

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  4. To all the falderall I say "PIFFLE!"

    But I'll admit you confused me Betty Keira. Camilla dated her step son?

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  5. Dr Moose Steuve van der Haar's former girlfriend invited herself to our wedding. I found out about it the night before and made it clear that she was not to attend.

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  6. Betty Mary--
    I think Betty Keira is trying to say that Camilla Parker-Bowles(as she was at the time)was at Charles and Diana's wedding.
    Betty Barbara

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  7. I'm cousins to cousins of Her Majesty Elizabeth II . . . and I didn't get an invitation. (It's a pretty attenuated connection -- someone in my family married a Lascelles a century ago; one of the princesses royal also married a Lascelles. There are some Lascelles living in New Mexico who *used* to be 52nd in line for the throne...)

    I think, with all due respect to my more uh, conservative fellow Bettys, that the Obamas will get invited. If it makes you feel better, Mr. Gaddafi will not.

    Betty Henry and his mother and some lovely friends of his family's came to my wedding to Betty Ross. Not quite the same as Camilla (whom I cannot like -- why didn't she marry Charles when he proposed in the 70s? Would have saved a lot of people a lot of heartache, although admittedly it would have prevented this particular wedding...) attending Charles & Diana's wedding. But then the royals are not like us. There's comfort in that.

    Cate is a non-standard diminutive form of Catherine. Kate works for Katherine, Catherine, Kathryn, Kathleen, and a few other names.

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  8. Betty Barbara here--
    Betty Debbie--LOL at your clothes explanations! So much better than Morning Coat, or Lounge Suit

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  9. Thanks Betty Barbara. I was at a loss. But then I didn't know Camel-la was at Di's wedding either.
    Again, PIFFLE.

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  10. I know he's prince and all, but I, the bride, had jolly well be married to him and not the other way around--she looks almost like a postscript.

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  11. Plus, I don't want to invite 1,900 people to my marriage--a bit crowded--1,900 to a wedding is okay though (especially if I don't have to pay for it).

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  12. I had never heard the term 'lounge suit' applied to a regular men's suit...I had to look it up because the first thing that came to my mind was 'leisure suit' and I knew that couldn't be right.

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  13. I'm so relieved that Gaddafi will not be at the wedding.

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  14. I think that those of us who planned to be up in time to watch the wedding (and I don't even own a television - are they planning to stream it anywhere?) should open a group chat in Skype or AIM, etc., to watch together. We'd all have the required scones and tea or fairy cakes...

    me<><

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  15. A morning coat is a cutaway, the traditional wear for *all* male guests at a British wedding, not just the wedding party (but they don't call it the wedding party). http://www.groomgroove.com/groomville/morning_coats.php

    A lounge suit is just a regular men's suit. And may I say that I am shocked - shocked - that standards have degenerated to permit them.

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  16. I don't think Qaddafi would be invited to his own wedding this week.

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  17. Would the Ritz be prepared to Fedex the scones and fairy cakes? That way, we could all be having the same tea while each wondering where our invitations to the event could have got to.

    1900 guests - that's what happens when you let your parents invite a few friends.

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  18. 1900 guests - that's what happens when you let your parents invite a few friends. LOL!

    From what I read, Betty Caitlin, the gossip is that Her Majesty is peevish about various "modern" aspects of the wedding arrangements, including the notion that the wedding breakfast should be a buffet! Quelle horreur! I gather the solution will be that Her Majesty, Prince Phillip and a few other people will be served. No standing in a buffet line for them!

    For those books in The Canon where there is a dressier wedding, the RDD often wears a morning coat. When it's one of those MOC weddings where the heroine has found the perfect "winter white" or "delicate shade of grey" dress and jacket, the RDD is wearing a lounge suit of clerical grey.

    You know who totally rocked the whole lounge suit thing? Lord Peter Wimsey.

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  19. Yes, Betty Magdalen, Lord Peter did rock the lounge suit...but then, he had Bunter to make sure it was perfect.

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  20. Betty Kylene -- I have to admit it, you got me curious about the Churchill bust business, which happened a month into Obama's presidency. Just in case anyone else hadn't heard about it, here's a piece in the Telegraph (England's most conservative daily newspaper; many RDDs read the Telegraph).

    This is the bit that interested me:

    Churchill has less happy connotations for Mr Obama than those American politicians who celebrate his wartime leadership. It was during Churchill's second premiership that Britain suppressed Kenya's Mau Mau rebellion. Among Kenyans allegedly tortured by the colonial regime included one Hussein Onyango Obama, the President's grandfather.

    Now, I know we're all big Anglophiles here. But I have a teensy bit of sympathy for someone whose objections to such a powerful symbol of the British Empire arise from the possibility that his own grandfather got tortured.

    And it's all relative, isn't it? I recall being shocked when Betty Henry (who is still British despite having lived here for 12+ years) said that he thought the Colonies were wrong to revolt in 1776. Colonization is a very delicate issue, depending on whether you identify with the natives (us in 1776, the Obamas in the 1950s) or with the Colonial overlords (the British here and there -- Kenya was known as British East Africa then).

    Now, if the Obamas refuse to attend the wedding because they're still being pissy about his grandfather -- then I have a lot less sympathy. But looking at Churchill's face every day? I can see why he prefers the face of Lincoln, the man who emancipated the slaves...

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  21. Uh for the record, the Mau Maus weren't a barrel of fun either....

    On the other hand, Betty Henry probably holds a often accepted historical view that the colonials aka patriots were a spoiled bunch of teenagers (calling Mrs. Neels!). I cheer for them anyway! This knee bows to no earthly king!

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  22. Of course the Mau Maus weren't a barrel of laughs. But when one colonizes an indigenous population, don't be shocked (shocked, I tell you!) when they get -- as the Brits would say -- stroppy.

    At which point, this discussion can lapse into a very learned discourse on cultural moral relativism versus whether there's an irreducible code of ethics. I remember seeing a sign in Hawera, New Zealand, about a Maori tribe's actions against a different tribe. The attacking tribe had sent along a medicine man as a peace offering. He was accepted, asked to share their food, and in the course of the meal drugged the host tribe. That allowed his tribe to come in and slaughter everyone in the host tribe. The sign, which was clearly written by a person of European sensibilities, said simply that the raid was considered particularly savage even in the context of tribal behavior of the times.

    Do we despise the Maoris because they had not developed a moral code that said such behavior was beyond the pale? Does it matter that they attacked other Maoris? If they'd slaughtered Europeans, we'd be outraged. But why have one attitude in the case of tribe versus tribe and quite another when we have more connection with the victims?

    And if we do have a different reaction when we have a connection with the victim, perhaps we can understand better the reaction of a man to the (alleged) torture of his grandfather? He may be wrong to feel that way, but we understand why he does nonetheless.

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  23. *cough* About those rocky political shoals I was steering us clear of... *cough*

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  24. Is it politics or is it history? If it's politics, then of course everyone who wants to despise any specific president can do so. Free country and all that. :-)

    But if it's history, facts -- or at least someone's version of the facts -- can be helpful.

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  25. Okay, are y'all ready for the big shindig?--up at four!! I made my trip to our local fancy grocery store: loose leaf English Breakfast tea, scones, crumpets, clotted cream, Stilton cheese, digestives, cream crackers, marmalade, jam, English cucumber, considered beans on toast, Hm? nah...

    The Princess Royal has to go to school (our public not their "public"), but The Littlest Princess is planning to outfit herself in princess gown, shiny heels, AND tiara.

    I suggested to Professor van der Hertenzoon that I should make steak and kidney pie in honor of the occasion for tomorrow's supper. He replied that he'll eat the steak, but I could keep the kidneys in a zone all to themselves....

    Rule Britannia!!

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  26. It's even earlier out here on the West coast (1 am)...Betty Keira is planning to tart herself up (ha!) and go to a wedding watching party. I plan to sleep.

    I stayed up and watched Charles and Di get married...and look how well that turned out.

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  27. I did get up early and watched them actually get married, but the rest is being recorded for later watching or deletion, as the mood strikes me.

    We're off to Staunton, Virginia (birthplace of Woodrow Wilson) for a real live wedding.

    Time to pack!

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  28. I'm donning a pretty dress, heels, gloves and a fascinator for the event even though I am a staunch small 'r' republican of the sort Molly Pitcher was. The party is not until 7:30 tonight and I just need to cross my fingers that I won't see the dress until then. Dang it, now it's made me go and be sympathetic to those pansy men-children who DVR basketball games and put a media freeze on their entire house until they're watched!

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  29. Betty Barbara here--
    East coaster that I am, I got up in time to see the ceremony.
    And now, it's on again(thank you, PBS) and my virulently anti-royal husband is sitting there watching it whilst I type this. Go figure.

    And now we can see that Pres Obama wasn't there. I don't know who the ranking American attendee was. As this was, really, a family event rather than a state occasion (like a coronation), I suspect many nations were represented by their ambassadors.

    I loved her dress and that's all I'm going to say, for Betty Keira's sake.

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  30. I did get up super early, watched them actually get married but had to stop there. I've got the open carriage ride and two kisses saved up on the DVD.

    I won't say what I thought of the dress. I will say, though, that I thought her sister looked AMAZING.

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  31. Okay, the explanation for not inviting the Obamas made sense. There were no heads of state invited, only Royalty and heads of state of the Commonwealth Countries... Sarkozy and Merkel, etc., weren't invited either.

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  32. What -- they invited each nations' royalty but DIDN'T invite Lady Gaga? America is officially insulted. ☺

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