Royal supporters watch Britain's Prince William kissing his wife Kate, Duchess of Cambridge on a giant screen in Trafalgar Square in central London, after the wedding ceremony, on April 29, 2011.
It's been a while since the world has seen an event with this much pomp and pageantry — since July 29, 1981, to be exact, the day Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer. This year, just three months shy of his parents' 30th anniversary, Prince William, the future King of England, married Catherine Middleton, his classmate at the University of St. Andrews. But before we could get to the nuptials, we had to endure weeks of coverage bordering on the absurd, crescendoing when CNN's Anderson Cooper sampled a "bacon buttie" (a British version of a ham sandwich) on live television the morning of the wedding. For monarchists, the event lived up to its billing — the dress! The hats! David Beckham in formal wear! — but for others, it merely marked the end of a long and excruciating bout of Windsormania. Meanwhile, spare a thought for the year's other royal wedding, in which King Jigme Khesa of Bhutan married Jetsun Pema, a 21-year-old commoner. The handsome, sideburned monarch — nicknamed the Asian Elvis — wed his stunning bride in an exotic and lavish ceremony, leading us to ask why this wedding didn't make as big of a splash.