A ROYAL WEDDING ON ROYAL TIME

I was invited to The Royal Wedding!
I went and now I'm back!  And not without jet lag!

And this is what I wore!

Hardly appropriate for Westminster Abbey at 11 in the morning.  But most appropriate for Los Angeles at 1 in the morning... 

...Except for the hat! 

Not appropriate anywhere!

except

maybe in private...
with friends...

in a great room...

on couches...
in p.j.s...

eating snacks...

drinking champagne

and

trying to stay awake for A Royal Wedding!

or

in the rice fields!

Backing up... 

This is the invitation of which I was excited to receive in my inbox just three weeks ago...

The Royal Wedding

• Thursday, April 28, 2011 • 11:00pm
• Hosted by NADAR
• 555-555-5555
• Title
• Address
• Los Angeles, CA

The Royal Princess of Los Angeles has been commended by the The Queen to invite you to

The Marriage of

His Royal Highness

Prince William of Wales

with

Miss Catherine Middleton

At [Location]

On Thursday April 28th at 11pm

attire: Sleepwear & a Hat

Please RSVP

And immediately and without hesitation I RSVP'd YES!

Prior to receiving the invitation, I wasn't really paying attention to any of the wedding hoopla.  I thought it was kind of silly.  If I hadn't been invited, I would have, most likely, not stayed up, and, only at my own convenience and depending on my mood, tuned in to the highlights.  I do need my beauty sleep.  Or rather, nowadays, I need my possibly-but-not-guaranteed-anti-aging sleep.  The beauty these days is solely in the makeup. 

I did stay up for Princess Diana's wedding once upon a time...in another life...of course, it was a piece of cake!   However, despite my "maturity" and feeling that the wedding hoopla was rather silly, the allure of attending a party starting at 11 pm and staying awake throughout the wee morning hours, while drinking champagne with friends until the sun comes up, was quite appealing, and...well... more so, quite challenging. 

   Could I do it?   

First order:  "A Hat"

I knew my host had at least two fabulous hats.  NADAR, the host,  resided in London for a couple years, and not without attending the Ascot Racecourse and the Henley Royal Regatta.  I didn't want her to be in poor company. So first matter at hand was to search for a hat.  The search began and then quickly and promptly ended at Ebay!

There was this hat!

And this hat...

And this hat...

None of them reasonable....none of them my color.  Reasonable to me was 15 quid.  Multiply that by 4 and they became... unreasonable.  So, as I sometimes do, when I get discouraged...I leave it up to the Gods.  Translation: Procrastination!  I'll look into this one later.

The week prior to the wedding I studied up with Piers Morgan on CNN and caught up with the best and the ways of the Royals.  As I gained more knowledge, I became much more enthralled with the Brits' enthusiastic anticipation for the wedding, and was beginning to realize that, for me, it was becoming much more than a late-night-stay-up with champagne, biscuits and a GI-normous-screen t.v.  I was actually becoming one proper British Royal Wedding fanatic enthusiast.  And, for me, it was no longer silly!

As the event got closer and my anticipation grew, it became increasingly apparent that it was necessary to secure a foolproof strategy on how I was to stay awake and alert throughout this event. This is the strategy I came up with.

STRATEGY

Early morning wake-up

Extra long gym work out

Extra long bike ride

Extra long and late afternoon 4:00 pm nap
Make-up to stay AWake-up

Coffee at 10



My strategy involved waking me up and wearing me out so I would be guaranteed a longer, deeper nap preparing me for the late-night-long-morning extravaganza!!!  I had a plan...or so I thought!

Thursday, April 27 arrives!

5:30 am wake up!
Drop off kids at school.

• One full hour plus 10 minutes at The Gym
• Big Sugar Bakeshop, Studio City, and I'm first in line to order some special Wedding Treats.
• Mission Wines, Van Nuys.  Not for wine...but for candy.  British Candy! 
• No work so Boring Housework

I hop on my bike and ride in the heat, but not without a cool breeze.  For that I am grateful, but it seems to counter my strategy. That breeze picks me up rather than wears me out.  I reach my destination, toss my bike into the back of the van and take off to pick up the treats.  By the time I get home, I'm wide awake and ready for more.  Nevertheless, I force myself to lie down to wind down, but my body will not have it...it will not take that nap. 

So...I get up, prepare supper, pick up kids, eat supper...

...and sit in front of that telly as I catch up with the final day of wedding coverage with Piers Morgan and friends.

I wrestle with the idea of sleeping for a couple of hours - from 10:00 pm  to 12:00 am - and arrive late, just in time for the 1 am coverage.  I think it rude.  So I abandon that idea and try once more for that nap. I do it!  I sleep! But, Crap! only for 10 minutes!

I wake up to an e-mail...

"People are saying they aren't coming over until 1 am so they can sleep!  So the start time for the party has been now changed to 1 am for the pre-wedding coverage.  The wedding begins at 3:00 am!"

Ugh!
I should've gone with my gut!

That's okay.  I still have things to do.  The hat.  The sleepwear.  Assemble the treats. 

I begin with assembling the treats.

4 Prince/Princess cupcakes, 2 red velvet, 2 chocolate, 4 crowned shortbread, 2 milk chocolate Aero Bars, 1 white chocolate Aero bar, and 2 wine gums later and the platter is set.

The sleepwear is next in order.  I decide spring colors are most appropriate.  I borrow Her Highness's peach colored pajama bottoms and slip on a pretty light green and baby blue trimmed camisole. I then politely request of my host if it is appropriate to wear a white robe to a wedding.  She says "yes."  And my outfit is secured!

I'm now counting on procrastination to become the mother of some kinda Hat invention.  Forget in-vention...what I really need is Divine Inter-Vention.
And that's when Divine Inter-Vention did it's/her/his magic and it/she/he helps me pull it off....for Divine Inter-Vention has my eye catch a light green sparkly runner on Her Highness's dresser-top, and I yank that thing out from under Her plethora of stuff, throw it in the wash, dry it up, and wrap that runner around that hat. And, Voila!  Divine Inter-Vention  has transformed my hiking Hat into a wedding Hat. 


It's now 10 o'clock.  And this girl is ready to go.  How to fill the time? What to do?  What to do?  Send the kids to bed, do a little mending, a little Facebooking...or more than usual Facebooking and before I realize it,  Holy crap!  it's 12:30 am. I clean up, pack up and I'm off to the party.

I arrive at 1:05 am and walk into a room housing NADAR, 1 guest, one hat, one tiara and a dog.  There are sandwiches, tea, champagne, lemonade and creme de cassis.  I slip my treat plate in between the yummies and, of course, start off with a Kir Royale. As I choose my seat, my attention is immediately drawn to the GI-normous t.v. screen and I'm mesmerized.  Not by what is ON the GI-normous-screen t.v., but by THE GI-normous-screen t.v.  As the coverage begins, 3 more guests stroll into the party room just as wedding guests stroll into the church.  And I can spot every wrinkle and blemish on each and every person....on that GI-normous-screen t.v.  It is extraordinary!!!

And the party begins!

We make jokes.
We laugh.
We vote best hat: Victoria Beckham.
We vote best MILF: Mrs. Middleton
We vote best nose or not-nose: Tara Palmer-Tomkinson
(of whom we know nothing about which leads us on a wild Google chase for the next 15-minutes)

Best Bride ever:  Catherine Middleton
Best Dressed:  Pippa Middleton

We vote on who would want to be a princess:  5 votes YES, 1 vote NO.  Me, Myself, I vote NO.
We hang on bated breath for each Royal and non-Royal to enter the church.

Kate enters.  Bells are chiming, jaws are dropping, and palms are sweating. 

She looks absolutely Exquisite! 

As we continue to watch the ceremony, we continue to eat and drink.  And during enduring the boring segments, we play games and exchange our own wedding stories...horror stories...beautiful stories....funny stories.  We wait for and bear witness to the kiss.  Or, rather, in this case, kiss(es).   It was long, yet each and every one of us forces ourselves to stay.  Not because we don't want to miss one minute of the post-wedding coverage, but we don't dare go home until it is assured that each and every one of our kids are sitting in their seats, in their classrooms, within the walls of their schools, so we can go home to our beds and have a pleasant uninterrupted slumber. 

We continue to stuff ourselves with sandwiches, candy and drinks as the sun rises, and surprisingly, I am still feeling wide-awake, as are most of the others.  I and We have just successfully stayed awake throughout the night of an awesome and probably, most likely, the one and only party of this kind!!! 

Though, by 8 am, I start fading fast, and by 8:15, I have to say my goodbyes right away if I wasn't going to fall asleep on the road.  I'm home by 8:45 am, in bed by 8:50 am and back up at 11:05 am.  Can I have jet lag from going from L.A. time to Royal time to L.A. time in just a matter of an 8 hour period without ever leaving Los Angeles?  Apparently so.  So, yes I can!

Consequently but reluctantly, I finally surrender to an unproductive day while anticipating yet another busy evening.


So, later in the evening I take Her Highness to this...

To eat these...

Then we go to this...

(disguised to protect the innocent)

After I take her home,  I go to this...

(disguised to protect the innocent)

And by the time I get home, on the day of the wedding that started at 3:00 am, it is 11:45 pm,  I am exhausted.!

Since then, I have recovered.  I think. I may still be on Royal time...and a little "jet lagged."  No regrets!  I had a fantastic time!!!  It was certainly worth the price of the lack of sleep!  So to all you future-mid-lifers - if you have the opportunity to see a Royal Wedding in Los Angeles on Royal time with friends, hats, champagne, and a GI-normous-screen t.v., Do It!  You probably will never have a chance to do it again!  And know in mid-life there are still those once in a lifetime opportunities!  Even if they are kind of silly.  Because sometimes silly is what life is about!

Ciao for now

k