A Royal Pain

My father has always hated the monarchy. Personally I think he’s just a tad salty that he isn’t the one driving Range Rovers around the acres of country palaces, but irrespective of his reasoning, he has an issue with it. Growing up in London, you do become somewhat acclimatised to the royal over-drive. When I’m on my long run, which often swings around Buckingham palace, my focus is not on the changing of the guards but traversing the herds of tourists and selfie sticks and I avoid tourist shops selling William and Kate masks at all costs.  I switch off documentaries about royal love affairs, I refuse to read biographies of the fifth in-line butlers through the ages and I simply do not want to know what colour Hunter wellies Kate wore last Saturday at the farmer’s market. Will Meghan be a Diana 2.0?! I don’t know and I certainly don’t care.

This week I have been introduced to more couture designers than the number of Real Housewives locations. Ralph and Russo or Alice Temperley?! Will it be pearl detailing or lace fringing! For the history buffs, Queen Victoria was the first monarch to choose a known designer to create her wedding dress so Meghan really could choose anyone. I’m secretly placing my bets that she goes for a matching Juicy Couture velour tracksuit. Hey, it’s modern, it’s American and its couture.

In 2013 some fellow bought a small slice of the Queens wedding cake for just under two thousand dollars. A year later, the price was quadrupled for a crumb of Kate and Williams. The good news for the cake dealers on the market is that Meghan and Harry’s is a little bit lower maintenance, a little bit more millennial. An elderflower and lemon sponge! How delightful.

Now the real question, who is walking the suits actress down the aisle? The average wedding isle according to some wonderful website I use when planning my own wedding to Prince George in twenty years’ time, is fifty-seven feet for twenty rows. I’m hoping we can have over forty to accommodate all those double-barrelled families! The press has accounted for the vast amount of time it takes for Meghan to walk down the aisle, approximately half the length of Lil Yachty’s lyrical masterpiece "Dan Bilzerian," by providing every front page with up to date information. Will her father make it back from his heart surgery? Will her mother step up to the role? Will Meghan have to walk alone like Kim without Kayne at this year’s Met Gala? I’ll keep you up to date.

Given my clear passion for all things royal, just like Emma Thompson in this hilariously brilliant article that you all must watch, you would think I would conclude this article by proclaiming that Ed Sheeran is my favourite ginger.

However, amidst the cake, the guest list, the dress and the mere $40 million the eight-hour-do will cost (the classic wedding day snipers on the roof top included!), I have to give the royals and the British public some credit.

Returning from America, I have witnessed something rather wonderful as a result of this crown wearing, polo playing, archaic family of ours. We have managed to finally switch off from the negative news for a week, or at least have allowed ourselves the indulgence of celebration. Amidst the devastation in Gaza, the tragic truths behind Childish Gambino’s recently released video This Is America and whatever the fuck Trump is doing this week, we have allowed ourselves to enjoy something we know will have no political or economic implications and something we for once, don’t have to take sides on. 

This week I indulged myself in royal revelry by attending the launch of Sketch’s Mayfair Show, a beautiful flower exhibition within the illustrious Mayfair club to celebrate the up and coming festivities. Walking into a hallway that was reminiscent of the Yves Saint Laurent Garden in Marrakech, I walked up a royally themed staircase blossoming with white hydrangeas and drank pink hibiscus cocktails, secretly toasting Ms. Markle under my breath.

I cannot say that I’m the monarchy's greatest fan but given their limited political power and that, although hard to believe given they shop for groceries at Fortnum’s, they technically bring in more money than they spend, they are pretty harmless. Most importantly, the fact that one of their wedding allows pubs to stay open until one both on Friday and Saturday means I’ll be toasting Meghan Windsor out loud on Saturday.

By Sophia Parvizi-Wayne

Duke Student, leader of national campaign on mental health, Cross Country All-ACC, fashion alchemist, Huffington Post writer, and all-around world-runner

Photography by Victoria Eavis

Modelling by Alex Felix & Soraya Durand