Dear Rockstar, There was a Royal Wedding

Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton

Dear Rockstar,

Mum hasn’t written to you in awhile (partly because she’s still trying to get used to acknowledging you no longer refer to her as “Mummy” which she misses, you’re growing so fast), but then Prince William and Kate Middleton got married and as with many famous, rich (and I guess especially royal) people, the celebration of their union becomes everyone else’s business. The new Duchess of Cambridge, as Ms Middleton will now be known, has big Choos to fill. Prince William’s mum was the iconic Princess Diana.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skYtvSTwZt4]

The day before, Mum overheard the caucasian guy standing behind her in the Landmark taxi queue on the phone checking the dress code of some private club that apparently had a Royal Wedding viewing. “Does your ‘smart casual’ require a jacket? Shirt is fine? Oh, shirt with collar.”

And this one’s just a funny Asian guy’s video one of Mum’s friends put on Facebook (just because Mum thinks a lot of people who weren’t even huge Royal-everything fans probably still logged on and paid attention because everyone else was and they wanted to know what everyone else was talking about when they all got back to work)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIKVTXVqs8U]

Mum remembers Grandmum switching on the tv to a live telecast when Mum was not much older than you are now. (Not because she thought it was a fairytale princess wedding, your mother has never been a wedding-y girl, your father is haha, but because she remembers thinking it all took really long without anyone appearing to be doing anything.) And then Mum remembers watching in disbelief the newsflash of Princess Diana’s tragic death from the tiny tv set in her dorm room when she was in her early 20s.

[youtube  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQTe47cR-Ws&feature=fvst]

Grandmum’s guilty pleasure is reading about the Royals in the supermarket tabloids and Mum would occasionally deal with bouts of guilt at not being able to do more for Grandmum when she spent some weeks here taking care of you while Mum went back to work by walking into the Dymocks in Prince Building and buying stacks of gossip rags- anything that had a mention of Royals in them- to bring home to Grandmum.

Your mother got looks – The Economist or BT were more in keeping with her work uniform of pencil skirt (Burberry, Sportmax or ordered off Dad’s tailor) which Mum wears almost exclusively with back-seamed hose (that French hose with the black line running down the back of the legs that she bought in bulk from an outlet store in Kuala Lumpur – who knew they used to make the good French stuff in Malaysia), light shirt (Theory or bulk purchase off victoriassecret.com – Mum loved the fit of their shirts best), power jewelry (diamond studs, long strands of pearls or, more often, Marni or other seriously large statement pieces), Burberry trench or Anteprima wrap, and perpetual rusty red YSL Muse Bag. (Mum also carried a deep chocolate Jimmy Choo or various Prada but the Muse was Mum’s favorite, because Dad rang her once, “Can you live without your (red YSL) for 3 weeks? There were stains so I took it for a professional cleaning this morning but now they’re saying they want 3 weeks to do it.”

Mum bought virtually all her own jewelry and bags and stuff because Dad came from a very poor family he supported along with heavy study debt when we were first together, so even after he was doing better Mum just never felt comfortable expecting him to pay for her more “frivolous” purchases. Besides, Mum made her own money, it was part of the joys of shopping, back in the day.

During work hours your parents were known to hang up on each other if the market was moving or we had an impending deal. We had boy-girl fights on the Bloomberg chat (yes it is all transcripted somewhere ). We famously got as far from each other as we could on the buy/sell side, much to the amusement of our colleagues, we – especially I – struggled for credibility so. During busy periods we could go 6 weeks without hardly a personal conversation. Sometimes your dad just had to sit in front of the tv without saying a word if he’d had a tough day. Your mother blasts Gangsta Rap music or sits with the dog on the floor.

But when the dust settled, late in the night alone with his thoughts (Mum’s an early bird, he is nocturnal) your father would do things like clean my laptop. Install new virus software. Plan a vacation for us both. Stuff my bags into shoppers to ship to the cleaners along with his suits when he got back from trips that required them. (He likes to keep our maid on her toes that way).

Somewhere along the way Mum digressed into what our marriage is like, when what she had really wanted to do was keep a simple record of what people are saying today about an historic occasion, that of a British Royal Wedding that hasn’t been rivaled since Prince William’s mum before.

One of the world’s most eligible bachelors is no longer, and yet the whole time there was all this fuss Mum was wondering if anyone else thought to what extent what they thought Fairytale Prince had to offer was diminished by the fact well, he’s Fairytale Prince. It comes with a lot of baggage. And internet crazies. (Ahem. Mummy’s not crazy ok.)

He’s asking someone to accept a life where their relationship will always make the news. To give up their choice at privacy, and to put up with indescribable pressure over what they wear, say, eat… Being called “Waitie Katie” in the tabloids… And there’s the risk that the kind of girl who wants the attention rather than say, puts up with it simply because Fairytale Prince is actually a great guy is well, maybe not the kinda girl he was hoping to spend the rest of his life with in the first place. (They are getting married for the rest of their life, aren’t they?)

Therein lies the insecurity of the rich, famous, beautiful, of noble birth – does this guy/girl like me for me?

When the new Duchess of Cambridge was quoted, “He’s lucky to be going out with me,” your mother agrees. Forever and ever is hard enough to work on without also everyone else’s expectations and opinions and a whole bunch of relatives. You don’t get to choose relatives and unfortunately she has a dead iconic mother-in-law and like, the scariest grandmother-in-law in the universe.

And as for the whole marriage thing… Why do we often celebrate weddings a lot more than we do 10, 25 year anniversaries? “I do” at the altar is easier than the next decade or two.

Love,

Mum

Ps: But you have to know Mum was such a non-wedding-y person she wore a victoriassecret.com bustier + tailored knee-length circle skirt as her own “wedding dress.” She then wore the same bustier under business suits at office parties and vowed to wear some permutation of that to her 2 bridesmaid’s weddings… Your mother is probably not typical. But for the record she thought the Alexander McQueen dress the Duchess of Cambridge wore was just absolutely awesome (if you like that kinda thing).