Yes, it is an exceedingly difficult question to answer in light of that.

I think for me personally, though I should be noted that I don't really give a shit, it could be the IDEA of monarchy, rather than actually having a monarchy. It is far easier to idolize what you do not have while at the same time celebrating the fact that you do not have it- if that made any sense at all.

I think it's the fairytale thing. Americans are generally raised with the notion that they can do and be anything as long as they work hard enough, but every little girl who becomes fascinated with the princess culture and Cinderella-esque stories knows that the one dream they can never achieve is to become Queen or Princess -- unless they are fortunate enough for someone with an actual title to fall in love with them and whisk them away into a life of "happily ever after."

Combine that with a completely romanticized view of royalty, and you end up with an obsession. At least it's better than seeing yet another headline about Lindsay Lohan.

Because the idea of being a princess is romantic to a lot of people. Can't see why with all of the paps everywhere not giving you a moments peace. If someone from the Royal family were interested in me I'd run far away as fast as I could!

I agree. There was actually a quite nice article on the Yahoo headlines about why every broken-hearted young lady should be thanking their lucky stars that William chose Kate instead of them.

Oh yes, here it is.

Actually, I think you've got a really good point about the "princess" mentality, Wolfie. Do you think it begins with Grace Kelly?

I always thought the purpose of the 4th of July was to go to music festivals, watch fireworks and drink beer...

I don't know if I'm "fascinated" by this or not. It's about as exciting for me as Chelsea Clinton's engagement/wedding was. Which wasn't very much at all. I'm happy for them. That's about it though.

Actually, when I first saw this topic, my first thought was, "I wonder how many people will mention the part about paying wedding taxes..." since that doesn't seem very cool.

I think it started long, long before Grace Kelly's time!

All these fairy tales about girls growing up to marry princes didn't start in the 20th century, or even in America. Although it is a highly maketable idea in this country(Disney?).

I am actually glad that my wedding was very small and had the bare minimum of people(couldn't have cost more than $200-300 with the JOP and marriage license stuff). My sister could've shown up on time instead of an hour and a half late stalling everything, but c'est la vie, right?

I certainly agree with you about the longevity of the "princess" dream, Wolfie. But, Grace Kelly, a Hollywood semi-star (I won't say "starlet" for the connotations that has) actually made that dream a reality...

I expect to take some heat for saying this: I don't think we celebrate the 4th of July in that way anymore. I don't think we have in a long time. Very little attention on the 4th is paid to the struggle for independence or the plight of our founding fathers. Over time the holiday has evolved into something else entirely. Ignoring the commercialism and consumerism the 4th has become this holiday where people celebrate the accomplishments of the country, and the memory of those who have sacrificed for it on general terms [meaning any war, usually with a strong emphasis on the ones in living memory]. No one uses the 4th of July to burn effigy of the king or any of the British officers who fought so hard to keep us under the first and second estates' thumbs. I think the "celebrating freedom from England" part had worn off by the first centennial. Sure the '76 worlds fair in Philly was an attempt to outdo the crystal palace but it's not like the European powers were snubbed at the fair. If anything we were like a little kid jumping around saying "look at me! Look at me! I am as good at ___ as my older sister!"

On the same token, our perspective of the declaration of independence itself has changed as well. We no longer treat it as the revolutionary manifesto it was originally intended to be. The only people who still use it as a revolutionary manifesto are the domestic terrorist militia groups who use the original intent of the text to advocate for the overthrow of the federal government.

This was all very different when our founding fathers and their sons were alive. Even if you take something as seemingly unrelated as architecture you'll find that the land owning elites in the United States [the country, not the colony] went to great lengths to distance themselves from the monarchs and nobles of Europe. Almost all our government buildings, schools, and even churches drew upon classical inspirations. The estates of the rich elites almost without exception modeled off of classical architecture or federalist style architecture. As the name Federalist style implies, this was an intentional effort to make an expression against divine-right rule. The rich would not allow themselves to look like kings or barons. Then the war of 1812 breaks out and reinforces the notion that divine-rule is an unspeakably evil thing that is irreconcilable with the notion of natural rights. Even the plantations of the south under slavery drew upon classical inspirations instead of say, European palaces.

By the time American families started becoming richer than god from industrialization the federal period was fading fast out of living memory. The elites of this generation seemed obsessed with mimicking the blue bloods that their ancestors had fought and bleed so much to get away from. I can think of a great many rich Victorian Americans who literally commissioned their own private castles in the United States instead of having classical inspired mansions like Washington or Jefferson lived in. Not by coincidence these rich industrial elites were referred to in their own time as BARONS. Bolt, a hotel BARON of the Victorian and Edwardian era in the United States went so far as to purchase his own private island on the St Lawrence River then paid a small army of laborers to painstakingly carve the island into the shape of a heart, and then erected on this island a series of castles just so that the Bolt family could show off how rich and powerful they were. The family's kids got their own castle on the island so that they could use it as a "play house" for crying out loud. The romantic story they tell the tourists about this place was that it was to be an expression of Mr Bolt's love for his wife who died tragically while things were just finishing up construction. Mr. Bolt reacted by stopping all construction and abandoning the island never to return. It sat abandoned for nearly a century, was partially disassembled for scrap metal during each world war, and finally in the ~90s they started restoring the island to make it a tourist trap. I've been there several times and even in its worst condition: practically ruins [which not many people remember, I was lucky enough to see it before it was brought so far to complete restoration] it still expressed every ounce of power that Bolt had originally intended for it. This was nothing at all like the classical inspired plantations that my family owned in Virginia and they actually owned slaves unlike the industrial elities who only pretended to have peasants through the poorly paid workers who labored away in unsafe conditions. The same impression can be found at Carnegie's mansion [an estate modeled after those belonging to Europe's absolute monarchs] and in a way that would have made even Louis the 16th blush, Carnegie was so tough on his workers that when they dared voice dissent he sent his enforcer Frick to the steel town with a group of mercenaries who simply gunned down the unarmed protesters and then evicted their families [after repossessing all the property they rented from the company store]. The widows and orphans left behind had literally nothing. No home, no furniture, no clothing except what was on their backs at the time.

Then when the Victorian castles, the piles of wealth, and social dominance wasn't enough our industrial barons would simply buy into real European nobility through marriages [it was/is easy enough to find broke titled European families who had wasted away their fortunes and were in need of fiscal blood transfusions].

It is amazing that today the only time American masses seem to care about European royalty is when celebrity worship is involved [i.e. Dianna]. Maybe what brought Americans back away from caring so much about monarchs is our modern culture of consumer fundamentalism. Instead of everything being a game of trying to be a baron in every day life; it's a game of trying to keep up with the Jones' [and I don't know which is worse]. The elites of our generation in America don't commission castles [I am sure there are exceptions and I am talking in generalities instead of absolute rules]. Instead they go with McMansions. Then when they're done working & consuming and finally die, they get thrown in McCemeteries with McHeadstones and forgotten.

Sgath, that's an amazing, instructive post, and I thank you for it. It's strange; when you started to discuss architecture, before you came to it, Boldt Island sprang to mind - I've been there a few times too during the 1990s, although approaching it from the Canadian side of the border, I never disembarked because I didn't want to go through the hassle of passport control.

You highlight a misconception I - and I'm sure many British people - have about the importance to you (the American people in general) of the July 4 celebration, and rightly so. It shows that although our cultures are closely linked, it's still possible to misapprehend the meaning and importance of symbols, and that from a distance, perhaps those symbols retain a greater sense of meaning to the distant spectator than to those for whom the symbol is actually a living, evolving thing.

That said, I therefore want to turn the question around. Although, obviously, for many, the matter of this royal wedding is a matter of indifference, how do you - eg, American (and, actually, I'd like to open this up to European readership too) mentally perceive us reacting to the pending nuptuals? Do you visualise us engaging in elaborate fairy-tale preparations? Or lining the streets to wait for the passing of the Royal carriage (okay, extreme examples, and I doubt if anyone here would have such a perception...)? I guess what I'm asking is, do stereotypes about the British affect your perception of the way we mark such events?

I picture in the coming months/years: A mass media swarm so thick it blots out the sun and follows the couple around everywhere they go; becoming more and more aggressive the closer it gets to the actual wedding once a date is set. This media hysteria I picture being so crazy and out of control that they'll end up running over baby strollers in the streets, causing car accidents, and possibly bordering on kidnapping the poor victims. I then expect the media institutions to try to sell the story by running it in so many places at once that the sun never sets on the story. Everyone everywhere in the world will know about the wedding,; not because they care but because they just can't get away from it.

I am not sure if any of that actually involves stereotypes, but that's the image I get.

On the plus side, at least Britney Spears won't be in the crap that is passed off as "news" for a while if things play out that way.

I'm very pleased for them. It sounds like they're a very happy couple, none of this "convenient courtship" bullshit, she's not even a royal. But they obviously make each other happy, and I'm pleased for anyone who finds their love, so I'm happy for them.

I know there are concerns about the cost of the wedding- and being as William is a future king, there will be little chance of it being a very small wedding- but I get the impression that William and Harry have always been far more in touch with the common people than some of their other relatives, and I think that William probably wouldn't go overboard. Keeping in mind, however, that he is a future king, and a king has to have a good wedding. But then again, the wedding itself could generate a large amount of income in tourism and merchandising, so it may well be just what the country needs economically. But all that aside, having something to celebrate also maybe what the country needs.

I envision it kind of like Americans with the President. Some of y'all will care, some won't and a few will be ecstatic, envisioning it as being part of their own lives like people who are obsessed with celebs over here do.

That's exactly what I was thinking (particularly the celeb part).

My mom has told me often about the various aspects of living in England, and one of my questions I know at one time or another was how did the British public like having a monarchy (was it exciting, etc.). And she explained to me that it wasn't a big deal for them, it was just part of the norm. She said to think about people being excited for having a monarchy would be like people here being excited because we have a President.

I actually am not sure how I envision anyone from England acting over the marriage. I suppose in all honestly I could see people both happy or upset about it for various reasons.

The first thought, honestly that ran through my mind was "Hmm, I wonder if she'd be a good queen for the people". I am wondering if I am the only one who had this thought. I hear that William would be a good king for England and since Kate is not royalty maybe she'd be more in touch with the people?

Then again, exactly how big of a role does the royal family (i.e. King and Queen) play in the politics of English government?