The Royal Wedding

verabear Interesting stuff, Ramblings and Brain farts 4 Comments

Did you see it? I was not excited for the wedding, and I had no plans of watching it.

But we got home, turned on the TV, and there was Kate Middleton about to walk down the aisle. I was hooked.

Prince (now Duke) William is my age (oh okay I’m a year older, ugh) so I grew up adoring his smile and yes there was a time when I would daydream about him. But since Kate Middleton figured in his life, and he started losing hair, I just couldn’t care less about him.

When news of their engagement surfaced, I wasn’t excited or particularly happy for them. I am a girl and they say all girls want to be a princess, and we love fairy tales. But I just wasn’t infected by the Royal Wedding Fever.

Until I sat down to watch it.

This was one of my favorite parts of the ceremony. I think the Prince was telling Kate and her dad how beautiful she was. And he was trying no to smile too much. Haha. Before this, there was Prince William walking to the altar with his brother Harry. Both just casually walking and seeming to kid each other from time to time. And then when Kate was making her entry, Prince Harry kept looking back. I just love how they weren’t uptight and all were just trying to proceed normally.

Westminster Abbey is huge and some who were lucky enough to be invited were not actually able to witness the ceremony in the inner sanctum. Mom has been there and says she has a photo with the Archbishop of Canterbury (we are Philippine Anglicans and Ma has been to London a few times for her work for the Church). Anyway, notice how there were trees inside the Abbey? How cool is that? Okay, so they were probably just brought in as opposed to them being really grown there…

I kinda wished they sang hymns that I actually knew. Or better yet, that they veered away from tradition and had a pop star sing something for the ceremony. Theirs was a quick and simple wedding, because there was no Eucharist. I noticed there was no ring for the groom. I guess it’s not customary then for the husband to wear a wedding band?

Having come from shift, and then LTO, short drive to pick up Mom, and all that, I was sleepy and dozed off while the wedding party were off signing the register. When I awoke, they were walking down the aisle and out of the Abbey.

Anyway. It was by all means the fairy tale wedding we expected, minus the big grand bridal gown. Hers was understated, but very classy and elegant. Timeless, I think it’s been called. I love her ‘something borrowed’ – the Queen’s tiara!

The flower girls and paige boys were all so cute –

I found this cute too, when the Prince of Wales carried the little girl so she can have a better view of the big crowd cheering the newlyweds:

I didn’t see the first kiss but I did see the second. It was so simple. So sweet. And the wonderful thing about it is how happy they just seemed to be. Their eyes were glowing with happiness. They wanted to be there!

And here’s the boyish and gorgeous looking Harry, too bad Pippa was grimacing!

Photo from this article on The Daily Mail

This is another lovely photo of the couple with their small entourage, and their families:

See the photo in its original size here.

They had two cakes for the reception, a cream/white one, and a chocolate cake from the family recipes. Although I always go for the chocolates, I think I prefer the elegant looking cake this time around:

Someday I’ll make a cake with elaborate décor like this too. Maybe. Haha My wedding cake would probably have a lot more color than this, but it looks really nice and elegant.

In closing, here’s a photo of the Duchess of Cambridge on her dress for the reception. She truly is a new style icon, among other things. And I wish the royal couple all the best. May they do good for their country and their people, and may they use their stature to further what is good and beautiful. After all, they’re fairy tale has just started.

All photos in this post (except that of Prince Harry and Pippa) are from the Flickr account of The British Monarchy.

Back to Blogging Basics

verabear Interesting stuff, Ramblings and Brain farts 3 Comments

Last night, I started thinking about the days when I had just started blogging. Back then, I had a list of blogs I would go through everyday. I’d visit other bloggers – some I’d interact with (comments), some I would just stalk. I developed some friendships doing that. I earned backlinks too even before I knew what those were. Through that I learned about the possibility of earning through my blog. My Bravejournal earned PR and I received paid link opportunities that fueled me on to blog even more.

I think that’s when things changed.

Now, I rarely visit blogs just for the sake of checking up on someone. I don’t always click on a link or badge looking forward to an exciting new post or another entry in a continuing saga of someone else’s life. More often than not, I click on to the next blog and expect nothing.

And that is plain sad.

Am I sad that my blog has PR and that I get sponsored link opportunities? No! But I have to remind myself every once in awhile NOT to lose sight of what blogging has always meant for me.

That said, let me just share with you two blogs that I visit even if they are outside of the two traffic-building blogging networks I am a part of – Entrecard and Adgitize.

I first found the blog Made by Petchy when I was looking for tutorials on how to make camera strap covers. You should really check it out, not just the tutorials but the rest of her blog as well. There’s a lot of eye candy with her sharing her wonderful photos, and the makeover she’s doing in her house. There is so much design inspiration in that blog, and some baking and cooking too 🙂

My first visit to Zakka Life was to checkout her post on this very cute 2009 calendar craft project. I did it too, and it looked like this:

But Zakka Life has many more craft projects to share and even if you’re not a crafter, you’ll spend a lot of time oodling over all the cuteness that can be found at her space. So check her out!