The Wedding

A few of our regular readers (I am constantly amazed that we have any of those!) have been discreetly prying into our - especially Lynx's - opinion about the wedding. Wills & Kate's. William and Catherine's.

It turns out none of us has seen it live in its entirety. One made sure to see the arriving guests and then left for a picnic; another two saw the latter part of the ceremony; yet another one also saw the two kisses.

But of course, with so many channels retransmitting the event in its entirety, it was not difficult to reconstruct it.

Do we have a consensual opinion?

No. So I'll only give mine.

Venue and decoration:
Westminster Abbey is possibly the most magnificent venue for a ceremony of any kind. The decoration - with young trees (then to be transplanted) - was to die for, in my opinion. It was perfect.

Music selection:
 A -. It was glorious.

(The minus refers to the absence of the music that I would have wanted to hear, but then I was not the one getting married.)

Reading and sermon:
Perfect.
I still do not quite grasp the relevance of the chosen reading to the occasion, but it was a wonderful passage - and it was very well read. Who knew a cake master could read so well, with such impeccable timing and sense of drama? (It may sound snide, but it isn't.)

And the sermon was just wonderful: to the point and pronounced in a lively, personally affecting manner.

The bride's dress:
Catherine looked very graceful and dignified in it, which is what matters the most. The "old fashioned" veil - not frilly, but falling smoothly over the face, and long - was a total success in my eyes.

The cut of the dress suited Catherine, and she did a great job complementing it with the right posture. (Her walk was less than perfect at certain points, but that's a minor quibble.)

However, I did not like the neckline, or the upper part of the dress in general.

The V-neckline is very tricky. In reality - as opposed to theory - it is not really flattering to anyone except very busty women (because it visually slims the torso), and there is something inherently "dowdy" about it, so it has to be cut very low - much lower than Catherine's was - to transcend that. But of course a very low-cut neckline would be too risky and inappropriate for such an occasion, unless it were very narrow, perhaps partly held together with buttons.

I wish she had chosen a Sabrina, a portrait or even a bateau neckline. They always looks elegant, even "regal", and they flatter practically all figures, except the very busty (which Catherine is not), and even there are exceptions. From among more revealing necklines, the empire neckline would have been very nice, I think, even though it would visually elongate Catherine's already longish neck. (Which would have been perfectly all right.)

Lace is always beautiful, but this particular combination with the V-neckline - or "scalloped" neckline - did not strike me as particularly successful. It looked like a "half-baked" solution, almost as an afterthought.

All in all, I did not think it was a striking dress. There was not enough for the eye to linger on it (and I don't mean frills or beads or sequins, nothing like that). But Catherine did look very nice and regal in it. My grievance is that she could have looked  regally WOW in a differently shaped bodice.

The bridesmaid's dress: 
Perfectly cut, perfectly suited to the bridesmaid's body, and perfectly worn (with excellent posture and rhythm).
The neckline, however, was about 3-4 centimetres (about an inch and a half) too low.
A bridesmaid should never upstage the bride - which is why the white colour of the dress was actually perfect, because it blended with the bride's train, almost as a live extension of it - and a low cut dress, with hints of cleavage, does just that. It is simply not appropriate.

The kiss(es):
As always, unnecessary. But these two pecks were actually endearing, especially because William blushed (twice).

I hear some American commentators were "disappointed" in it.

Really? In what, precisely?

This is not a reality show - even though it was treated as such - and slobbering has no place at any wedding, let alone on such a public occasion. A weddding is the most intimate of all ceremonies; and while a display of affection is to be expected and applauded (not literally), more intimate expressions of said affection are not. They embarrass the onlookers - at least those onlookers that haven't been totally brainwashed by the Big Brother era of visual culture. And, believe it or not, there are still quite a few of us left on this God's earth.

Which brings me to the most awkward and somewhat painful point of this reluctantly written post... Do they really love each other?

I don't know. You don't know - unless you are either Wills or Kate. Nobody knows.

And I certainly hope they do. But judging on the body language alone - realising that it is a very tricky thing to do, because bodily expressions of intimate feelings are highly individual and should never be generalised - I am simply not sure that they are as much in love as the commentators around the world would want them to be.

Charles and Camilla positively beamed on the day of their engagement and later, on the day of their wedding; you cannot fake that. And they still exude a comfortable and happy togetherness.

William and Catherine's body language, on the other hand, is ambiguous at best.

I have yet to see a single shot of them together where he looks into her eyes for more than a split second, before averting his eyes.

Perhaps this is due to the Prince's notoriously (and understandably!) reserved personality.

Or perhaps editors around the world are choosing such shots to be published and discarding more intimate ones. It sounds unlikely but it is possible.

Be it as it may, I do hope they will be happy together, because anyone's happiness is a boon to the world. It makes the world a little better a place for everyone.

P.S. This is a sketch. It will be heavily edited and added to in the future.

P.P.S. According to Basenotes - which have been vandalised (who hacks a perfume website?! Kate, was that you?) - Catherine wore White Gardenia Petals perfume, by Illuminum.
According to various websites copying each other, the top note is coconut, followed by the middle notes of gardenia, ylang-ylang, jasmine, and the base note of amber.
According to the maker's own website, there is no coconut note, the top note being lilly, the heart notes white gardenia, muguet (= lily-of-the-valley) and "jasmine breeze", with a bottom note of amber wood clinching the composition.

All of which would be slightly more impressive if one of the only six words printed on the bottle weren't misspelled.

Apparently spelling isn't the forte of whoever the copywriter - and editor, and proof-reader - of Illuminum's marketing material is. In their description of the Wild Tobacco fragrance, they say that "the base of Labdanum adds a sostenato chord of sensuousness and depth."
Sostenato? Surely you mean sostenuto?

Does this sound like nitpicking to you?
Nitpicking would be devoting an entire post to this.
And let me tell you: if you want to present the appearance of high class and solid culture underlying your fragrance brewing (or any public-oriented activity, really), you shouldn't offer any nit to pick. It produces an impression that is very likely the opposite of what you're trying to achieve.

Just lay off the "fancy" words. It's more honest, more endearing, and much easier than a crash course in general culture.