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Royalty for a day
I’ll fess up right away and admit I watched the royal wedding – and enjoyed it. I did it as a gesture of respect for Prince Charles, whom I encountered fleetingly last summer as our vehicles sped in opposite directions along the Loyalist Parkway. We extended mutual waves, and silently promised one another we’d meet again.
And yes, I teared up at the appropriate moments— the hand holding, the veil lifting, the gospel choir, the sermon on love, the cellist, the first kiss on the church steps.
The spectacle was pulled off with typical British panache. Nobody threw an egg at the open carriage. Nobody objected when the traditional call for speaking now or forever holding your peace went out. None of the page boys or flower girls went rogue. And it was nice to see that Ben Mulroney got a good seat (he must have either got there really early, or, perish the thought, shoved aside some elderly countess). Also good to see that Sir Elton John found the time to show up, notwithstanding his heavy retirement commitments.
I will leave it to others more informed to speculate about the significance of the marriage to the quest for world peace; although they did seem to be very happy together. Whether things will still go well when one of them thinks the other isn’t pulling his or her weight with washing the dishes or doing the laundry is a matter they will have to work out for themselves.
The wedding was by all accounts a tremendous economic success. One British consulting firm put the boost to the economy at almost one and a half billion dollars—having doubled its estimate of just a few days earlier. I guess it’s true that no one ever went broke overestimating the capacity of the public for royal souvenirware. All those biscuit tins, tea mugs, aprons and tea towels—not to mention official commemorative coins and china—add up to some serious money.
All of which got me thinking about royal weddings in Canada. We don’t really have any royals to supply the principals in the pageants, although Laurier Brisette, the 15-year-old son of Governor General Julie Payette, could conceivably marry while she is deputizing as a royal. Nor do we have many celebrities in Canada. (All right, we do have Gordon Pinsent, Christopher Plummer, William Shatner and Donald Sutherland, but you can only get married so many times). So we are missing out on what could be regular boosts to the economy. But therein lies an opportunity,
Here’s what I propose. Let’s create an annual “Royalty For a Day” wedding opportunity in the County. Every betrothed couple in Canada would be eligible to apply. The prize would be the royal treatment at a wedding to be held in the County—all paid for by the County’s tourism promotion budget. It’s really not that much of a stretch, epecially if you believe the geneaologists who say that each one of us has a distant royal ancestor somewhere.
It’s true we don’t have a castle to offer (the Reid’s Dairy building is outside the County), but we do have some attractive barns. We have horse drawn carriages (well, more like wagons, really). We have choirs; we have florists. We have more than our share of amateur and professional directors who could stage a spectacular ceremony. We have actors who can step in and play father of the bride, or some other essential role, on short notice. We have an ample supply of street-throngers who are skilled at interacting with paraders. And we would be assured of healthy media coverage with our community radio station and three local papers (four, counting the Coffee Time News) to draw in a heap of local, regional and even international attention.
It would be a win for the couple and a win for the County.
The “Royalty For a Day” winners could get married over the annual Victoria Day holiday weekend. It would enable the couple to take a few days to honeymoon in the County in advance of peak tourist season, and then catch the annual bluegrass music festival the following weekend at Salmon Point, before heading home. I’m looking forward to hearing The Dusty Drifters myself.
Once the idea catches on—as it surely will—the County could sit back and watch the trinkets fly out the door. Who wouldn’t want to acquire a 2021 “Matt and Tiffany” set of Royal Doulton figurines, or a 2030 “Ariel and Jupiter” handcrafted tissue box cover?
I think I’ll repurpose my “County Boy’ baseball hat and call it a “fascinator.” Just to be ready in case I get asked to attend.
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