Two months....

As of today, there are-(checks calendar)- 62 days until the royal wedding, and all indications are that it’s still on track to be as personal an affair as William and Kate can make it.

First, in the wind-up to the wedding, William and Kate have made their first official joint engagement-yay! They christened and launched a lifeboat. (Really, a lifeboat?) The main significance of this engagement is that a) they did it together, and b) they did it in the community they have been living in for the past year and will be living in for the next few years as William finishes his military tour. Their next trip was equally personal- they went to where they had met, St Andrews University, for its 600^th anniversary. This is being touted as Kate’s big introduction to royal life.

Now, on to other matters of significance. Keeping with what is a tradition in some places, William and Kate have chosen to have a very young group of attendants at their wedding, Excepting, of course, the Mo Hand best man, that is- in other words, Kate’s sister and William’s brother, Pippa and Harry. Everyone else, though, is a small child. All of the children are the children of close friends of the couple or they are close relatives. In the category of children of friends are the page boys, tom Pettifer and William Lowther Pinkerton; also in this category is bridesmaid grace van Cutsem. The rest of the attendants are all related in some way to William- Eliza Lopes is the daughter of Williams stepsister, Margarita Armstrong Jones is the granddaughter of Princess Margaret, William’s late great-aunt; and Lady Louise Windsor is his cousin, the daughter of his uncle, HRH the earl of Wessex.

Equally personal, it is said, is the guest list for the wedding- as personal as one can get when 1900 invitations have been sent out anyway. Of those 1900 invitations, 1000 have been sent to family.

Of those 1900 guests invited, 600 will join the happy couple and Her Majesty for lunch, and only a further select 300 will join the family for dinner.

The larger guest contingent is broken down somewhat as follows- fifty British royals have been invited, as have 40 or so foreign royals- including the King of Bahrain, which, in light of the current situation in that country, might raise a few eyebrows. Also invited and close to the couple are servicemen from the RAF base at which William is currently serving, as well as the Household Cavalry, another regiment in which he has served. Not invited, interestingly, is Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York- but, then again, she and Prince Andrew have been divorced for 15 years, they were married in the Abbey(which might bring up memories), and, poignantly, Sarah would have to sit with the masse instead of with her daughters at the front. One might think she would have declined anyway.

Since the wedding is not a state occasion, world leaders such as the Obamas have not been invited- the trade-off for that one is that Obama will be making a State visit in the summer. Fittingly, 200 representatives form areas such as the government and the diplomatic corps have been invited, as have representatives of the various Commonwealth realms- including Canada’s own Prime Minister and governor General. Representatives from William’s various charities have also been invited, as have a number of celebrities- including the Beck hams.