The American Football Person’s Guide to the Royal Wedding

Want to sound like you know what you’re talking about when The Royal Wedding goes down on Saturday? This probably won’t help, but here it is anyway

Hello, football person. You, like me, might just be coming out of an NFL draft-induced coma, disheveled, irritable and—if we’re being honest—covered in your own filth. You’re also likely oblivious to The Royal Wedding, which everyone is talking about and which will begin in just a few hours. And because you have absolutely no idea what’s going on, all this Royal Wedding talk is likely making you even more irritable, disheveled and filthy. But fret not. No fretting. Yes, zero frets.

I’ve been surrounded by quite a few Royal Wedding fans—from my spouse to my co-workers to others who I’d describe as friends but who probably would not do likewise—and I’m here to share what I’ve gleaned while my attention shifted between the person explaining things to me and whatever is on Cartoon Network. Ergo, my Royal Wedding expertise, presented in that obnoxious pseudo-Q&A style that everyone hates but we still do anyway.

First question: Isn’t this just a shameless grab for clicks?
No.

Is that a lie?
Yes. But you’re already here, so we might as well move on.

Fair enough. So… what’s The Royal Wedding? And, more importantly, why does everyone care?
Great question. As for the former, it’s Prince Harry, a member of the British royal family, marrying Meghan Markle, a former actress (from America!). Regarding the latter, I’m not really sure what to tell you. It’s pretty neat that the royal family is still a thing. And there’s the need to live vicariously through celebrities to ease the unrelenting pain of our own shattered dreams and disappointing lives.

I dunno, you’re kind of losing me. Do you have an appropriate 90s Simpsons clip or something.
Do I!

Ha! I love that one. When Homer teaches the class on secrets of a successful marriage.
I know, right? FX has every episode ever. Wanna watch it? I’ll meet you back here in 22 minutes.

[22 minutes later]

• PLACE YOUR ROYAL WEDDING BETS: The latest odds if you need to make things interesting on Saturday.

So good. All right, you’ve sold me on this Royal Wedding. What about Harry, he seems like an agreeable fellow.
He does seem pretty swell. Lots of philanthropic work, he’s an advocate for mental health, founded the Invictus Games.

And he looks like Carson Wentz!
He looks a little like Carson Wentz. In reality, he looks exactly like Andy Reid if Andy Reid shaved his mustache. We know this through The MMQB’s breakthrough mustache-removal technology:

Sporting News/Getty Images; Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

That’s just a photoshopped picture. A poorly photoshopped picture. Plus, Prince Harry has a full beard, which includes a mustache, so it makes even less sense.
Well, a young man from Silicon Valley created it and sold us the technology for $1.4 million. After Peter King announced he’d be moving on, we had freed up some cash in our budget and this is how we chose to spend it.

That seems like a horribly wasteful use of resources.
You say that now, but what will you say when Dave Wannstedt makes his return to the sidelines?

Touché. So Meghan Markle, what’s her deal? She was an actress?
Yes! She also does plenty of humanitarian work, backing causes like gender equality and clean water. But yes, she was an actress, most recently on Suits, which you might recognize as the USA Network show that is neither Mr. Robot nor a rerun of Law & Order: SVU. Basically, if you’re watching USA Network but not witnessing the wonderful acting of B.D. Wong, there’s a good chance you’re watching Suits. (I believe that’s the show’s tagline.)

Also, she’s a divorcee, but Harry won’t have to give up his claim to the throne like Edward VIII did when he married an American divorcee in 1936. Because people aren’t weird about that kind of thing like they were back then.

So she was an actress, and now she becomes a princess, and then they get to be King and Queen someday!
Well, probably not—it turns out watching every episode of Sofia the First is not the best way to research royal succession.

Apparently you have to be born into the royal family to become "Princess [your name here]," so Meghan is going to become a duchess. Will you be shouted down if you call her “Princess Meghan”? Probably. I don’t really know. Ultimately it’s all just words, which are just a series of sounds and syllables we produce. When the aliens get here it probably won’t be a point of contention.

As for becoming King and Queen, well, Harry’s got his dad, Charles, then his brother William and his nephew George, niece Charlotte and nephew Louis ahead of him in the line of succession. So Harry is kind of like the Mike Kafka of the royal family depth chart.

Mike Kafka, nice. Speaking of which, you ever see the Home Movies with “Franz Kafka Rock Opera”?
Indeed, it’s utterly tremendous. Pretty sure that episode is on-demand if you want to take another break.

[22 minutes later]

That was also excellent, but we should probably power through the rest of this.
Agreed.

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We’ve established you’re just doing this for those sweet, sweet clicks. But you’re touting this as “The American Football Person’s Guide to The Royal Wedding,” Is there any actual connection to football?
Hmm… Well, Jay Ajayi just became the first British-born player to win a Super Bowl. (UPDATE: Unless you count Osi Umenyiora, who is British-born and won two Super Bowls. I, apparently, don't count him.)

Ooo, did he get invited to the wedding?
He should have been invited. If he wasn’t it’s an outrage. But I’d remind him to check his Spam folder for the evite before he gets too upset.

You think they sent out an evite for The Royal Wedding?
The only other option would be to send a mass email from Charles’ AOL account, and then track RSVPs by hand on a spreadsheet. Evite does all that for you.

So Jay Ajayi is British. That’s your NFL connection. Anything else?
There’s Broncos OT Menelik Watson is British, and he proposed to his fiancée during a preseason game last August. And the Royal Wedding and preseason football have plenty in common.

How so?
Much like with preseason football, you’ll probably settle in for the Royal Wedding, have a few drinks then realize what you’re watching is pretty boring and fall asleep on the couch, waking a few hours later with the latest issue of Highlights stuck to your face and the Shamwow guy yelling at you.

As a proud American, my jingoism demands that you explain this to me in the context of the greatest nation in the world. What pairing of Americans would draw this kind of interest?
Oof, that’s a tough one. Two people highly respected and unquestionably famous and powerful in current America. I’ll go… Zuckerberg. And, I guess… Flo. From the Progressive Insurance commercials.

Since the U.K. is taking an American actress, it feels like we should be getting a British actress in return.
Yeah, I think that’s fair. We should probably demand Carey Mulligan to complete the deal.

Does she have to come here and marry someone in our leadership?
It adds up. Don Jr., I guess?

Hey, why you gotta make this all political?
I’m not! He’s the son of the current President. And my understanding is that he’s recently come back on the market. I’m, uh, not sure Carey Mulligan would go for him. For many, many reasons. Like, a lot of reasons.

Whatever. Anything else I should know?
The MMQB staff text thread had a lot of chatter about Meghan’s dad. Apparently he’s staying behind in the U.S. because of health concerns. But there was also a controversy over the “embarrassment” of him posing for staged paparazzi pictures (because apparently he besmirched the otherwise noble pursuit of partaking in and/or consuming paparazzi photography). Someone reported Prince Charles is going to walk her down the aisle (Schefter, maybe?). So that’s nice, but it’s still a pretty big bummer.

Boy, really ending this thing on a sad note.
Huh, you’re right. What else, what else… Oh! Mark Mravic insisted I mention Æthelred the Unready, King of England around the turn of last millennium. And apparently, if the nickname is any indication, not very well thought of. Also, in case you were wondering, England is in the northern hemisphere, so the Coriolis Effect will not impact this wedding—toilets will flush in the proper, counterclockwise fashion. But, yeah, I think you’re now ready to set your alarm for 4:30 a.m. and watch this thing.

I’m not getting up that early on a Saturday!
Yeah, I’m probably not either.

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