Written by Linda
June 07, 2011
I admit I watched this condensed Royal Wedding happily slack-jawed on my couch, much as I would have if I had bothered watching it live.
OK, so I somehow missed the Royal Wedding of HRH Prince William and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29th, 2011. Why? Well, for one thing, it was broadcast live on TV, which in theory should be a good thing. Except on the West Coast of the USA, the broadcast started at 1am on a Friday morning. Um, no thanks. I have to get up and slog through another day in my work week, thank you very much. After watching the highlights on Good Morning America while groggily eating my bowl of cereal, I never got around to watching any of the following wedding specials that weekend... especially because that Sunday night culminated with the assassination of Osama bin Laden (remember that?).
Anyway, so I found myself with the BBC DVD The Royal Wedding, which in all practical terms, is basically a rush-job to capitalize on getting product in stores as quickly as possible for royal souvenir hunters. But you know what? The BBC is as smart as they are efficient. A casual royal-watcher like myself is just really interested in the ceremony, and less so all the ingratiating hoopla of the press. The Royal Wedding DVD is simply that: a briskly, yet seamlessly edited 2-hour version of the live BBC coverage of the event itself. There are no touching profiles inserted, or over-the-top blathering commentary (the commentary is almost non-existent in the second hour, thankfully!). It is just the news coverage. How great is that?
All the important bits are covered, with the DVD beginning with the Middletons leaving their hotel, to Princes William and Henry arriving then going off to one of those Westminster "secret rooms" for consultation, to the gasp of "Yay!" of one of the BBC commentators when Kate steps from her car to fully reveal her dress for the first time, to the ceremony itself. As the DVD case said that the disc ran about 120 minutes, I became concerned at around 1:56 that we were slowly watching The Queen alight from her carriage in Buckingham Palace after the ceremony. But, thankfully, the disc is actually closer to 2 hours, 8 minutes—yes, that means that we get the two (!) balcony kisses, the flyover, and then it is a wrap. Really, that is all I could have asked for, and I admit I watched this condensed Royal Wedding happily slack-jawed on my couch, much as I would have if I had bothered watching it live.
I'm sure there will be extended commemorative editions of the wedding available on DVD, with all sorts of extras and commentary. This Royal Wedding DVD keeps it simple, with the only extra being a 45 minute special called "William & Kate - A Royal Engagement" which profiles the couple's past and relationship leading up to the big announcement. If there was more on this disc, I may have gotten royally bloated and resentful, but really it was just about perfect... all the casual viewer would really want.
