The fairytale wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton captured the imagination of the world Friday, with millions sharing in the celebration of the royal nuptials at parties across the globe. An estimated two billion people were expected to have watched on TV when William and Kate exchange vows at Westminster Abbey, and even in the home to the Hollywood stars royal glamour shined strong. “We have movie stars, but they’re not as good,” said Paula Haifley, 30, as she arrived at the Cat and Fiddle British pub on Sunset Boulevard. Decked out with Union Jack flags and cut-out Kate and Wills models at the entrance, some 300 royal party-goers packed into the bar for the all-night bash to watch the wedding service that started at 3:00 am in LA.
“We came to celebrate. It gave us the opportunity to dress like girls, and celebrate the pomp and circumstance that we don’t necessarily get over here,” said Katie Christiansen, 24. On nearby Hollywood Boulevard, waxwork museum Madame Tussauds set up a huge screen to show the royal wedding live, just along the road from the world-famous Graumann’s Chinese Theater. “It’s a Cinderella story to make Hollywood drool,” Andrew Rule from London commented in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph tabloid. “Today the world will see the wedding that proves that fairytales can, and do, happen,” he wrote in the newspaper which reserved its first five pages for the wedding.
Australia’s state broadcaster ABC as well as two of the three major commercial networks provided live coverage of the nuptials that took place in the evening in Sydney. Hundreds of devoted monarchists gathered for celebratory lunches across the country, joining for a champagne toast, wedding cake and slideshows of the royal family and soon-to-be newlyweds. Neighbouring New Zealand was also celebrating the event, with the national New Zealand Herald declaring it the “Happiest day of our lives” on its front page, which was emblazoned with a picture of the young couple. “I’ll be watching it at home with my granddaughters (aged six and nine),” Kip Marshall told AFP at Wellington’s bustling Lambton Quay shopping district. “We’ll dress up a bit, put on some plastic crowns and fluffy boas or something. It’s an occasion, who knows when they’ll see another one.
They’ll probably see another royal divorce before another royal wedding.” Across Asia tens of millions tuned in to the event as national channels interspersed wedding coverage with discussion, commentary, and off-beat tributes to British life. Indonesia’s Metro TV featured a Beatles lookalike band performing the band’s classics live, out of tune, in English. British embassies across the region organised parties with big screens for VIP guests to watch the festivities. In some places with large expat populations such as Hong Kong, less formal gatherings in pubs and clubs promised to be more boozy and raucous. Luxury hotels in Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi put up giant screens so that wealthy anglophiles could watch the wedding.
Meanwhile in Paris, some well wishers visited the statue by the Pont d’Alma that has become an unofficial memorial to William’s mother, the late Diana, Princess of Wales. A solitary pink rose lies at the foot of the “Flame of Freedom”, above the tunnel where Diana’s car crashed in 1997. With it is a handwritten message: “Dear Diana, thinking of you on this special day.”
