It was recently revealed that Prince William and his fiancée, Kate Middleton, have officially registered for their wedding, which is later this month.
But unlike most couples who enter their wedding wish list at places like Bloomingdales, Williams-Sonoma or the bank (yes, some people actually pass out their checking account number for people to deposit cash on their behalf), the future King of England and his bride have asked people to donate to a list of 26 pre-selected charities near to their heart instead.
Which is a lovely gesture, of course. Especially because if they had actually asked invited guests for two sets of 300-thread-count percale bedding or a dozen stemless wine glasses, for example, that would have been potentially awkward. After all, is it really appropriate to buy a blender for the guy who stands to inherit Buckingham Palace? Isn't it safe to assume there's already one there, and if not, that there's someone whose sole job it is to jump up and down to make milk into a shake on demand? It's unclear how a request for a malted would be handled, but surely it's been thought of before now.
William and Kate have decided to eschew a cake-cutting ceremony in which the bride and groom are meant to smear some of the featured dessert all over each other's faces. Particularly since they're serving a fruitcake and no one wants to be scratched by an errant nut. Yes, the classic Yuletide punchline confection is what the fortunate 600 who have been invited to the wedding luncheon reception of the century will have to force down at the end of the event before they attempt to pilfer the flower arrangements on their tables to take home. The hired videographer has already signed an agreement that states that if the bride ends up with part of a raisin between her teeth, he must turn off his camera and hand her a compact mirror and some dental floss before he may continue shooting.
Because she's marrying into the highest possible society, Kate will not wear the traditional garter belt for William to seductively strip off her leg in between the Yorkshire and plum-pudding courses and toss to the present bachelors, according to early indications from royal watchers. Because that wouldn't be classy. Instead the young prince will saw off her chastity belt and present it on a velvet-draped sterling silver heirloom platter to his grandmother in a nod to the traditional values she holds in such high regard, despite the fact that the second-in-line to the throne and his betrothed have been living in sin off and on since college.
And instead of Kate throwing her floral bouquet into the crowd, she will do for the first time publicly what every other commoner who has married into royalty has done before her in private: she will be encircled by the spinsters in the room and point and laugh because she landed a prince and they are destined to either be alone forever or with a man who is most certainly not a prince, or at least not the prince. It will leave most in attendance wondering if they really witnessed it. But a week later she will be photographed holding orphaned AIDS babies in Africa and the moment will be mostly forgotten, even if some will continue to talk about it for generations to come, although much like the JFK or MLK conspiracies, there will be no hard proof except for some grainy cell phone video images that historians and pundits will argue were taken out of context.
The wedding band Kate will don when she becomes a Mrs. is being made out of part of a nugget of Welsh gold that has been in the family for years and was given to William by Queen Elizabeth as a gift. For his part, William will not wear a wedding band, as his father and most of the men in his family advised him that despite the pervasiveness of the urban myth, it's actually much harder to pick up chicks with a noose around your finger than it is when you go ringless.
In addition to being commemorated on stamps, coins, tea towels, mugs, flags and a refrigerator, the handsome twosome will be the subject of countless motion pictures, including a Lifetime movie, a Hallmark miniseries and a film entitled The Royal Romp, which is currently the subject of a bidding war between Cinemax and the adults-only section in every local video store and Redbox kiosk.
Finally, Kate will have six hairdressers on hand for the big day (two for the south side of her head and one each for the east, west and north, and one dedicated to her face and body) and William will have two private bartenders on duty -- one for each hand -- as he only recently learned that he's marrying a woman who apparently requires six hairdressers.