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Could Meghan Markle’s pre-royal wedding nightmare have been prevented?

17th May 2018

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Note: This post has been moved from Latest Picks due to length of extended updates.

With regards the somewhat embarrassing what has been termed “Markle debacle” of the will-he, won’t-he turn up likelihood of Meghan Markele’s father escorting his daughter down the aisle on her royal wedding at the weekend has giving tabloids and more aptly the online journalism’s social media sharable News 2.0 as much a field day than if they were able to attend and get someone to drop their pants.

Could Kensington Palace have prevented Meghan Markle’s pre-wedding nightmare? (mashable.com).

Thomas Markle, image: Coleman-Rayner
Thomas Markle, image: Coleman-Rayner
Prince Harry to Meghan Markel: “It’ll all be perfect on the day.”, org. image: Samir Hussen/Wireimage
Org. image: Samir Hussen/Wireimage
Less than a week before the couple were set to say ‘I do,’ TMZ reported that Thomas Markle (Meghan’s dad) had told the gossip site that he wouldn’t be attending the royal wedding because of a “fallout over selling photos of himself.” Mr Markle “made a deal to allow a photo agency” to take photos of him “getting ready for the wedding”.

Said posed pictures being of him studying a book on British heritage in Starbucks and being measured up for a suit by a young chap who’s qualifications as a tailor were somewhat dubious in an expat enclave in Rosarito, a coastal resort city and former suburb of Tijuana in Baja, Mexico.

And then having emergency heart surgery sealed him absence while still only seeming to trust talking to American headlines in all-caps celebrity news site TMZ about his embarrassment, with seemingly bitter and estranged relatives giving their two-penneth to all that will listen with a half sister writing an autobiography titled The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister (thesun.co.uk) and a half brother an open letter to Prince Harry insisting he’s making the “worst mistake in royal history” (thesun.co.uk).

Blimey. And you thought your relatives were handful.

But really, couldn‘t it have been kept more under wraps? Sounds like somewhat like someone not only dropped but bloody well bowled a ball through the gates of Kensington Palace:

Royal gift shop is open
Royal etiquette expert William Hanson feels the media is “largely to blame” in this situation, but “in many ways Kensington Palace” is also culpable [Kensington Palace containing the offices and the residences of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince Harry]. “If the interest wasn’t there, and the need to fill days and days“ worth of content to make advertising revenue, the media wouldn’t have chased Thomas Markle or any other member of her family,” says Hanson.

But media has long done this, especially since the dramas of the marriages of Harry’s ma & pa Charles and Di and the even more embarrassing exploits ending in post separation tabloid pictorial toe sucking of Andrew and Fergie. But it’s suggested that British press at least have some sort of line drawn but that American media dealing with an American public even more obsessed with the wedding and anything royal than any Brit granny queen of royal memorabilia:

But, the fact that TMZ is an American outlet has added an additional dimension to the media handling of this saga. He doesn’t feel that British journalists would have gone after a story like this. “In Britain, journalists by and large respect official lines that come from the palace,” he says. “There is a cultural difference. Americans haven’t grown up with this loyalty and deference to the monarchy.”

There may be a touch of fantasy exotica too, after all American’s don’t have a queen, princes or princesses having instead a royal branding family in the Kardashians—Kanye having indeed suggested he and Kim are American royalty (Latest Picks 2nd Dec. 2013)—and the daughter and son-in-law nepotism that has accompanied toxic Orange Don into the White House with a presidency run in the Trump Extended Twitter Universe as grounded in fantasy as Marvel’s Cinematic Universe.

And even those that have visited and spent cash on plates with pictures of the Queens face on in London’s tourist havens still can’t quite believe Brits don’t talk like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, walk around in perpetual fog, and have servants like in Downton Abby.

American fairy tales

Here’s why Americans are so obsessed with the royals (huffingtonpost.co.uk).

Disney Frozen

For people who grew up on Disney movies and fairy tale storybooks, the British royal family represents a real-life fantasy, one that people can follow closely and live out vicariously.

But indeed, as noted the same could be said with pop culture as a whole lived out vicariously on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook and Brits certainly enjoy Disney movies too but, well, reality of those doomed royal relationships in the 80s leaving things best left lived in fantasy land with the royal reality of the perceived perception of a royal family modernising itself with this marriage in story-monitised, socially networked modern life having a somewhat melting effect akin to Olaf’s dreams of summer in Frozen.

Olaf the snowman singing a happy song about summer in Frozen

Updated 18th May 2018

And it confirmed Prince Charles will be giving the bride away, something circumstances have made the future king somewhat adept at doing:

Prince Charles giving away Alexandra Knatchbull in 2016

The last time Charles walked a bride down the aisle: How the Prince of Wales stepped in to give Diana’s goddaughter away on her big day (dailymail.co.uk).

In 2016, Charles gave away family friend [and goddaughter of Princess Diana] Alexandra Knatchbull at her wedding to Thomas Hooper as her own father looked on.

At the time, some speculated that Lord Brabourne, a close friend of the Prince and the grandson of Earl Mountbatten, was in poor health.

Updated 19th May 2018

And at least royal title did not prove any dilemma for anyone other than TMZ (Latest Picks 27th Nov. 2017):

Harry and Meghan to be Duke and Duchess of Sussex (theguardian.com).

Jeanette Valentine and her boyfriend Patrick McKemie from California camped outside Windsor Castle on May 18, the day before the royal wedding
Jeanette Valentine and her boyfriend Patrick McKemie from California camped outside Windsor Castle on May 18, the day before the royal wedding.
Harry and Meghan’s first kiss as husband and wife
The title of Duke of Sussex, bestowed just hours before the ceremony on Saturday, means Markle will carry the style HRH and the title Duchess of Sussex.

And the proceedings pretty much went as expected, being a joyous celebrations for those that camped out for several days—and for some several thousand miles from home—to watch:

Fans camp out ahead of royal wedding (abcnews.go.com).

Jeanette Valentine’s birthday is on May 19, the same day as the royal wedding, and her boyfriend Patrick McKemie gave her plane tickets to England as a present. The couple from San Francisco landed on Thursday and showed up at Windsor wearing "When Harry Met Meghan" T-shirts Friday morning.

With the rest making do with it on TV—or not:

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry marry as millions watch (theguardian.com).

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have become husband and wife after exchanging their wedding vows before an altar that has sealed royal unions for centuries, and a global television audience of millions.

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Illustrations, paintings, and cartoons featuring caricatured celebrities are intended purely as parody and fantasised depictions often relating to a particular news story, and often parodying said story and the media and pop cultural representation of said celebrity as much as anything else. Who am I really satirising? Read more.

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