After eight years of courtship, Britain's Prince William and his fiancée Kate Middleton will marry on Friday, April 29, in a long-awaited royal event. The future king's marriage to Middleton, a commoner, has dominated headlines since the announcement of their engagement last fall and has already been declared a national holiday in Britain. The ceremony will no doubt draw inspiration from the iconic royal wedding of William's parents, Prince Charles and Lady Diana, but in case the pair is looking to crib notes from royalty a bit farther afield, here are some noteworthy nuptials from Bhutan to Monaco.
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King Mswati III and Phindile Nkambule
Country:
Swaziland
Mswati, who received an invitation to William and Kate's wedding, is no stranger to the world of matrimony, having 14 wives of his own. The 43-year-old absolute monarch is guided by a close council of royal elders who advise and often choose the wives for their leader. Swazi tradition dictates very specific rules for the marriages of the king, including the expectation that he marry a woman from every clan in an effort to maintain relationships across Swaziland; Mswati's father, Sobhuza II, had 70 wives and 210 children. Many of the young girls whom the king has married have taken part in the traditional reed dance ceremony, called an umhlanga. During the umhlanga ceremonies, a reported 100,000 young girls dance in celebration of their chastity in front of the king, before presenting fresh-cut reeds to the Queen Mother (or "Great She-Elephant"). If the king chooses a dancer to be his bride at the ceremony, she is obliged to accept the offer.
In the past, Mswati famously enforced a ban on sex for women under age 18 in an effort to curb HIV/AIDS, but rescinded the ban just days before the marriage to his 13th wife -- 17-year-old Phindile Nkambule -- in 2005. He married his 14th wife in 2008 and now has 23 children among all his marriages.
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TRADINGVILLA
5:52 AM ET
April 27, 2011
Same Family, Different People
Cultural backgrounds and different countries show very different ways of getting married, even royal families. But just in the same family, I am sure the bachelor parties Prince William and his bride-to-be have been way way more fun and crazy than the ones Lady Di and Prince Charles had before their wedding back in the eighties.
cirugia estetica en Madrid
MIKE CONNELLY
2:29 PM ET
April 30, 2011
Too Much Western Media Coverage
While I have a lot of respect for royal families, I feel there is too much media coverage of William and Kate's wedding. Such an event should be a personal, intimate happening.
One can argue that this allows a lot of people on earth to dream, but at which cost? Are we not overseeing much more important matters that the world is confronted to?
Hopefully, the media will be able to keep the good relationship it has with the royal family in Great Britain. I do not think it would be wise if we were to witness the birth of their first child live, if we were to tag along with Kate shopping for umbrella strollers or if we were to put too much pressure on the children to come when they go to school.
This is a difficult and trivial matter at the same time.
JHUTTON
2:17 PM ET
May 1, 2011
Did the Royal Wedding Damage Small Business
Whilst it was great to see the Royal Wedding, I feel that the impact it caused to small businesses could have been quite immense. Making the day a public holiday in my view was wrong especially since we had just had the easter bank holiday the monday prior and the May day bank holiday the following monday. We all like to take a bit of time off, but to have an additional day thrown into the mix in my opion is wrong. I just hope that small business seo was implace for the small businesses that were affected by having another closure, so that the day was not completly wasted.