Talks about reconciliation 2

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I've never started a thread here before, but I thought some people might be interested in this take on the story by a PR podcast I listened to yesterday (started listening to this podcast as I know very little about PR!).

It would be good to know if any of the resident PR people agree.

When It Hits The Fan: A Right Royal Whodunnit

Absolutely @CoffeeCantata Harry didn't look impressed at all and her likening royal life to a medieval banquet made her look a fool, and it was a badly covered insult imo.

she’s also over- confident that the audience finds royal protocol just as ridiculous as she does

TBF I do but I also acknowledge that there are many who don't.

IMO it was disrespectful to both those in the UK public who support royal protocol and those who were unwillingly forced to subsidise the overblown nuptials and the Henrys brief royal tenure in taxes.

Quite. Despite what they later claimed, H& M had actually tried to get an even grander wedding out of the Queen/taxpayer, so to pretend to find all the flummery ridiculous was a bit rich.

I nominate Anne as the mediator. She will take no nonsense.

I nominate Anne as the mediator. She will take no nonsense

Yep, because it would be a non starter from the day it was mentioned to her. 🤣

I don’t see the correlation between these two things tbh.

I do think curtseying to another person - especially someone who has acquired their high position by birth - utterly ridiculous in the 21st century. It’s quite normal for someone to find it alien and vaguely comic!

And it’s equally normal for someone to want as nice a wedding as possible! Presumably once it was decided that the wedding was going to be televised, a lot of the flummery was out of H & M’s hands anyway?

You find curtseying utterly ridiculous? Fine, don't curtsey, don't marry into an hereditary monarchy and expect it to modify for you to get only the bits you like.
Secondly - this isn't about having "a nice wedding". She was marrying a very rich white prince. Of course she'd have a fantastic wedding. It was the negative comment she made about the whole thing being "a spectacle for the masses" and saying that the Archbishop had married them 3 days previously in their own "backyard".
Can't you see the contradictions here, @BathOliversister2244 , if not the hypocrisy?

I do think curtseying to another person - especially someone who has acquired their high position by birth - utterly ridiculous in the 21st century. It’s quite normal for someone to find it alien and vaguely comic!

I agree. Add to that acquired titles that denote superiority / heirarchy and then insisting others use them in deference to you when you live in a republic and are not just a non-working royal but you have run a global multi-media campaign denigrating said system.....doesnt make any sense to me why you would want to associate yourself with a system/family you despise? And then to inflict this by choice on to your own DCs as well as use the additional banned superior HRH title in your private / personal friendships.

Also, Meghan was very happy to have others curtsey to her. It happened a lot. She was happy to be called "Your Royal Highness", to enjoy the wealth, privilege and status of being royal by dint of marrying Harry. It's very strange then, that she mocks curtseying to someone else!
Meghan is very royal. She's not some sort of republican challenging the rule of aristocracy.

This is precisely what I meant about the coarse and ugly behaviour, Cathy

TBF I wouldn't curtsey to any of them either, but then neither would I marry into a situation where such things are expected, and while nobody could fully know how things would be until they joined that family Meghan's pretence that she knew absolutely nothing about it is ridiculous

As said before though, I firmly believe the whole thing was no more than an opportunity to her, and here we are

Your point might carry weight if the person mocking said curtsey wasn’t so hell bent on having others do all these “ridiculous “ things to them!

and wanting the best wedding possible is fine , but you don’t then dismiss it as a “spectacle “ and lie that you were already married 3 days previously.

Are you kidding me!! She, only very recently, sent a private and personal gift to a close friend and signed it off with a HRH and her Royal title.

She LOVES the Royal protocol, and she didn’t even acquire it by birth.

Such an extraordinary level of hypocrisy. It's quite astonishing what they (and their fans) claim, and how they have monetised their royal connections.

I don't think she was referring to the actual Middle Ages. As an American, I thought she was referring to the Medieval Times attraction. There is one on California and one in New Jersey . I've heard about the NJ venue. If I'm right, it was more insulting.

https://www.medievaltimes.com/

You're right, @BemusedAmerican .Even more insulting.
Where would Meghan be without the association of royalty? She could do with being a bit more circumspect.

I do think she was attempting to be self-deprecating in that anecdote with the curtsey. It landed very badly however.
What I personally thought was worse though was the way she spoke just prior to it, when she related Harry saying, “You know how to curtesy, right?” And she almost spat out, “and I thought it was a JOKE.”
That right there was the insult. As if the very idea of curtsying to our monarch was ridiculous (which you may or may not agree with but if she doesn’t wish to comply with it, then don’t marry into a fucking royal family).

As an American, I thought she was referring to the Medieval Times attraction.... If I'm right, it was more insulting.

Insulting, and shows a total lack of understanding of the monarchy and its history. We don't have all this ceremony and ritual because it looks pretty for the tourists. We have it because it's part of our constitution and it means something.

A lot of ceremonies date from a time before there was much in the way of written records, before many people were literate. It was important that ceremonies were carried out before witnesses, and it was important that the witnesses understood and remembered what they saw - hence the symbols and rituals.

People remember the Lord Chamberlain breaking his wand of office over the Queen's coffin. That said it all about the transition of power from one sovereign to the next.

@HonoriaBulstrode , it's very ignorant, isn't it? Ignorant and disrespectful.

....and get all the benefits.

I also thought that’s what she meant.

I saw an advert for it, or something very similar when I was in Florida.

Agree that was what she meant. She is very culturally shallow.

As shallow as a puddle, as cultured as a clam.

I suggest you read up on it - and I’m not being rude - I just mean that it would take me about a page of A4 to explain all I’ve read/heard/seen and it’s complicated. And even if I did, some pps would then demand sources anyway!

Of course curtseying may be ridiculous in 2025, but members of the public aren’t forced to do so - some give a little bow, some just shake hands - I think the RF is very chilled about it these days. Yes, they do seem to do it to each other and on that point I’d say to M&H: Didn’t H explain all this? and, Meghan - if you like the idea of the RF and your royal prince, and the titles etc etc, then get with the programme, girl, and suck up the curtseying. You can’t have it both ways. But whatever you do, it’s not a good look to mock your husband’s family or his country’s funny little ways on a global platform.

M & H’s demands for a grander wedding are well-documented and that’s hard to reconcile with their disparaging of their nuptials on the OW interview. If they didn’t want 36million spent on them, they should have spoken up earlier.

They are a pair of hypocritical numpties.

Totally - it’s a connection with the past. I do see value in these symbolic acts, even if they may seem bonkers to the uninitiated. When Black Rod bangs on the door of the House of Commons at the Opening of Parliament, it’s a reminder of the long development of the UK parliament going back to the Civil War and beyond.

Long may these things survive!

M & H’s demands for a grander wedding are well-documented

We have the tiara affair in Harry's own words in Spare. Why did she need a tiara at all if she wanted a low key wedding?