Who cares about the Royal Wedding here in Monrovia? Although most local venues are not planning any special events, patrons could probably at least convince bartenders to change the channel if they want to watch more media coverage of the event.
Monrovia’s would ideally be one place to check it out, as you could sample British culinary delights such as fish and chips or Scotch eggs while enjoying a pint of ale. But they close at 1 a.m., and the ceremony starts at 3 a.m. on Friday.
Monrovians who actually want to venture out until the wee hours of the morning can watch the festivities live at the White Harte Pub in Woodland Hills, which will be throwing an all night party with live music and party favors, or the Cat & Fiddle Restaurant and Pub in Los Angeles, which will celebrate the event until the "I do’s" at 3 a.m.
On Friday, the Langham Hotel in Pasadena will be offering "Royal Tea in the Tap Room," featuring news coverage of the nuptials from 1-4 p.m. Advance reservations to all of these events are required.
The Internet is on fire with tips for how to host Royal Wedding teas and parties. In Monrovia, is a good place to browse for high quality teas. In addition to scouring the shelves at your local or for lemon curd and other tea time delicacies, a trip to the Cost Plus World Market in Pasadena might turn up even more authentic British goodies.
The media’s nonstop attention to the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton indicates that the Royal Wedding is one of the high points of our society’s ideals of romance, beauty, power and grandeur. Small-time fairy tale fantasies concocted by the average person explode and are shared on a much larger scale via worldwide network coverage. Memories of Princess Diana, still beloved and respected by many, induce viewers to speculate as to what could be in store for her son and his new bride.
In a sense, the Royal Wedding is like the almost-wedding of your friends and relatives. What if you or some of your loved ones share a distant ancestor from 2,000 years in the past that somehow connects you to royal lineage? Whether they scoff at the expense or sigh at the romance, viewers seem to enjoy a camaraderie in watching the spectacle, almost in spite of themselves.
Some of this phenomenon was captured humorously in Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, age 13 ¾, which is available at the . In Townsend’s book, the fictional 1980s teenage Briton helps organize a neighborhood street party in anticipation of the marriage between Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. He trumpets his enthusiasm on July 29, 1981, the date of the event: "ROYAL WEDDING DAY!!!!! How proud I am to be English! Foreigners must be sick as pigs!" It dissipates by Thursday July 30th: " I have seen the Royal Wedding repeats seven times on television," and on Friday July 31st: "Sick to death of Royal Wedding."
Your own cultural references to British royalty may be through childhood fairy tales, history textbooks, supermarket tabloids, or even Monty Python, but there’s something about the upcoming nuptials that has the ability to capture almost everyone’s interest. So whether you plan to ignore the Royal Wedding, attend one of the parties, or just randomly find yourself viewing some of the coverage while flipping through the television channels, one thing is certain—the media is in a frenzy about the nuptials. And thanks to that fact alone, plenty of Monrovians will be watching!
