(Photo courtesy Charles Maynes NPR) Members of Europe’s noble families gathered to celebrate Russia’s first royal wedding since the days of the imperial monarchy.
Victoria Eluszkiewicz
Connector Editor
Romanov wedding? The Romanovs are back with glamor, and I am loving it.
Grand Duke George Mikhailovich Romanov wedded Victoria Romanovna Bettarini. Duke George is the heir apparent to the Russian empire. He is the great-nephew to Czar Nicholas II, who, along with his wife Alexandra and their five children, was murdered by communist revolutionaries in 1917 in an attempt to eliminate the Romanov royalty. However, 100 years later at the nuptial altar of the St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg is proof, in my opinion, that the Romanovs are still alive and will never die.
The wedding itself was the archetypal picturesque royal wedding. Who would have thought that, at the steps of the cathedral in 2021, Russian honor guards would salute the couple with their swords upraised as if greeting a newly-coronated king and queen? The flower girls dressed in shining gold who were holding the bride’s 23-foot veil seemed to come straight out of a fairytale. European royals from Spain, Belgium and Lichtenstein attending the wedding as honored guests is very telling. While they are minor nobles, a picture tells a thousand words.
In my opinion, it is a glimpse into the past of the sense of royal glory that draped European history centuries ago.
Even though Duke George was born in Spain, raised in France and educated in England, he never lost the sense of his Russian identity. Russian was his first language. I respect those who are passionate about their heritage and their history. I also liked that he did not completely conform to typical royal rules, deciding to marry a non-royal. Victoria was the daughter of Italian diplomats. They met in Belgium and chose to marry, not out of obligation, but out of love for each other. The looks on their faces at the wedding were those of pure love, as if they were made for one another.
The wedding seems like an attempt to revive royal European heritage. What I mean by that is, royals are still around and they want to preserve their heritage which spans hundreds of years. Some critics bring up that everything about the royalty is all for show and that they are only symbolic and do not wield any considerable power. In that case, who cares about a wedding of two merely symbolic figureheads? I argue that it is much deeper than that. The fact that the world witnessed this royal wedding, especially a Romanov wedding that was regarded as a thing of the past, carries great importance. Seeing royalty still preserved today is better than having it disappear completely from our society. It is a part of history, and history is important.
And you know what? Maybe it is all for show. Duke George has stated a couple of times that he has no intention of meddling in politics and instead will focus on running charitable organizations with his wife. Good for them. What a breath of fresh this is. I don’t want another event tainted by depressing politics. I have to deal with that every day when I read the news. Instead of reading about that, I prefer reading about a royal wedding of long-lost Romanovs with gorgeous aesthetics.
Royal wedding, stunning dresses and regal aesthetics. What’s not to love about this wedding?
