Kiss Her Again, Wills, Make Us Believe

Like you, I usually turned the channel in the last several months whenever someone said the next segment would focus on important fashion designers and their guesses as to what Kate Middleton's dress might look like. Probably unlike you, despite this, I really looked forward to the real thing, when all the guessing would be over and we could all watch a young woman technically like us become a princess. Now, I'm afraid to tell you, I just can't get enough.

I can't say that I could tell on first glance that her dress was simply breathtaking, but after being told so by several experts, and viewing it over and over in action and in stills, I'm pretty convinced. I expected something a little more modern - more of a column style, less lace. Now I'm struck by its modesty, its amazing detail, the beautiful shape, and oh my goodness the flounce above that deliciously long train - I love. I thought her sister Pippa looked amazing as well. And the addition of the little children around them made for an absolutely awe-inspiring tableau.

Beyond the fashion, it was of course the human moments I loved. Prince William followed tradition and looked straight ahead as Kate walked toward him. But I could watch the replay a million times of Prince Harry looking back, grinning, then saying to William, "Wait til you see her."

I thought it was so beautiful that her dad remained by her through the vows.

Did you see William tell her, "You look beautiful"? People. These are the moments we hoped for. This is why we tuned in.

Don't you wish all your favorite songs could be sung in Westminster Abbey by that choir? I do. And how cool was it to see him bow to his grandmother while his new wife curtsied? You really can't convince me that wasn't a pretty moment, no matter how archaic you think it was or that the Royal Family is in general. And that's the thing I probably loved the most - the many moments that could have been stolen straight from a thousand different eras besides our own. I'm pretty modern really, but I mourn a few things from other eras that seem so much prettier than now. And this wedding was so rich with some of those wonderfully old-fashioned things.

I wish there had been a little more stolen affection - a hand-hold in the carriage, a longer kiss, or an "I love you so" before it - something to show us that beneath the awesome spectacle there remained a real live couple, two best friends, in love, and planning on forever.

And the wishing I think is why I got so swept away by the day in the first place. Because that church, those trees brought in to make it come alive, that mile-long red carpet (or something like), the choir, the royalty, the carriage, the palace, and the crowds - all of it seemed only the proper extravagance to hold something so wonderful and so life-changing, as love. I didn't wish for her man but for the acknowledgment that I married quite as well. I did wish for the money and the carriages and the palace, but with an accompanying shiver of delight that her small house with her husband can't possibly hold more happy than my small house with mine.

I took to heart the words the speaker quoted:

Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.

I think it's amazing that a culture so used to divorce still tunes into a wedding with hope and good wishes as if to prove that our belief in true love and forever is inexplicably, nigh unstoppable. We're so foolish. Something I am sometimes very proud to be.