How to Watch the Royal Wedding (Includes Wedding Bingo)

I would say that Royal Weddings for this blog are the equivalent of the Super Bowl or the Olympics are to other blogs. But Royal Weddings are far more special and more rare, making them the eclipse or Haley’s comet of royal-inspired novelty blogs like my own. Lest you waste any opportunity to soak up any of the prettiness I have compiled my list of suggestions for how to properly take it all in with your own last-minute, seat of your pants, Royal Wedding Viewing party.

1.   Synchronize your watches! Here is the schedule for the wedding, so you can keep up even if you can’t get up at 6 a.m. when Catherine leaves her Rolls Royce.

2. Pretend the queen is coming.
Remember all those nice things you have that you never use? Get them out. Put a cloth on the coffee table, pour your orange juice into the crystal and eat your breakfast off your nicest plates and china. If you have a candleabra, I highly suggest using it. (Most situations in life in general can be improved by a candleabra).

3. Plan your menu.
Feel free to cheat and buy some scones at Starbucks tonight to have nearby. If you can, get some jam and double cream (or whipped cream if it’s all your grocer can muster.) If you choose to make a scone, here’s a great recipe. If you are really inspired and want to go all high tea on us, check out these easy recipes for party bites and tea sandwiches from Foodily. If you are waiting until the highlights are shown Friday evening, get to the grocer and buy them out of all frozen appetizers (mini quiches, pigs in blankets, arancini, tiny egg rolls), some bubbly and tell everyone you had it catered.

4. Cocktails!
I realize that 6 a.m. might be too early for some people to drink a cocktail. I realize that those people might not live in New York city where drinking at breakfast is perfectly acceptable if one calls it brunch and uses specialty mixers. Safe bets include Kir Royales or Bellinis (and it goes without saying that Bloody Marys are out of the question). Feel free to do your toast whenever you’d like, but here are some cocktails in case you need them.

5. Wear a hat. I cannot emphasize how important this is. British weddings involve copious hat wearing. Hat wearing at weddings is sole reason British people were able to build and then maintain an honest to goodness empire (for one, people in hats seem larger than life and tallness is essential in nation building. Also hats are often ridiculous so people don’t necessarily notice when they’ve been colonized because they’re so distracted confused). Even if you are matching it with your pajamas, find something to put on your head, even if you are threading a ribbon through a shoe box lid (which come to think of it, sounds sort of minimalist and awesome). If you have some tissue paper, you can make this hat.

6. Play Royal Wedding Bingo. I was going to make my own until I realized that it had likely been done and I was right. Print out your own copy here. 

6. Get your tweet and live chat on. I will try to be up tomorrow morning and Tweet while I should be studying furiously.  The brilliant and witty folks at New York Magazine will be liveblogging all day tomorrow. You don’t want to miss that. You can also join a livestream chatthrough iVillage with our version of royalty, Real Housewife Luann Jessups who is technically a Countess.

7. Repeat after me: But it’s their wedding!
People  planning weddings say this a lot and its the main reason that I can buy M&Ms with my face on them in a range of custom colors. “It’s their wedding” is the magic way to explain away anything so fun that it seems downright silly to other people. At some point, a loved one will ask you gently, “why are you doing this? We aren’t even British.” Just remember. It’s your day (and Cate and Will’s). And no one can tell you how you  celebrate it.

Will you watch the wedding? Tell me how you’re having fun with the monarchy’s big day.

Deadline extended: Finding Emilie Giveaway! Enter by May 31

Deadline extended! I was swamped and could not promote my awesome giveaway. I’ve extended the deadline. Make sure you enter.

By now you might have read our lovely guest post by Laurel Corona giving a behind the scenes look at what inspired the villains in her novel Finding Emilie. I have 3 books to giveaway by May 31.

To be eligible:

1. Make sure that you follow me on Twitter (@wwmariedo). Include your Twitter handle so I know and don’t need to go gumshoeing.

2. Get your creative writing hat on. Corona’s novel imagines what might have happened if Emilie de Chatelet’s  daughter had survived. For the contest,  imagine Marie Antoinette had somehow survived. Tell me whatever you want (maybe you describe a daring escape or the shoe shop she opens in some podunk European village). You can say whatever you like as long as you do so in at least a couple of sentences and have fun while you do it. Put your revisionist histories in the comments of this blog entry below.

Get entering!

Guest Post: Teenage Dangerous Liasions

Your blogmistress is honored to have Laurel Corona write in this space during a very special week: The launch of her  novel Finding Emilie. Finding Emilie is a novel following the fictional daughter of Emilie de Chatelet, a noble who was an all around 18th century spitfire, taking Voltaire as  lover and studying Newton and physics when she should have been attending to her social duties. Here Laurel gives us  a behind-the-scenes look at how imagining a teenaged Dangerous Liaisions helped shaped the villains for her novel.

Guest post author and Finding Emilie novelist Laurel Corona

Anne-Mathilde de Praslin and Jacques-Mars Courville are a villainous pair in my new novel, FINDING EMILIE. The two love use his dashing good looks and her wealth and beauty to lure unsuspecting young women into Jacques-Mars arms, he for sexual conquest and Anne-Mathilde for the pleasure of seeing a reputation ruined.

In developing this nasty twosome, I looked for insight in several places. First, I cast my mind back over movies I’d seen about popular kids in high school who set their sights on humiliating some poor soul who wanted nothing more than to be one of them. I can’t remember the names of most of these films now, but I remember the general scheme.  Pretty and well dressed girl befriends non-threatening mousy girl who, Stockholm-Syndrome like, begins to take on the views and qualities of her oppressor. Together they look for someone on whom to inflict their mean-spirited entertainments.  In this, they are aided by a handsome, popular boy, maybe on the football team, who is looking for the school record in sexual conquests.  Enter victim, and the plot goes forward.  Blood at the prom, anyone?

Artist Fragonard's engravings for Liaision Dangereuses

The second source of insight came from eighteenth-century French literature, the era in which my novel is set. Long ago in graduate school, I read Choderlos de Laclos’ Les Liaisons Dangereuses, discovering, to my delight, that there really was such a thing as a “dirty French novel,” which I had heard jokes about. I must admit, enough time had passed that when I thought of the novel I was picturing Glenn Close and John Malkovich in the film version, but that was good enough for my purposes.

In Laclos’ story, the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont are ex-lovers who still share a magnetic attraction to each other, which is now channeled into plots to force others into indiscretions that will ruin their reputations. The purpose?  No more than the challenge of it, and of course the thrill of new sexual encounters.

The plot revolves around multiple seductions, Valmont of the naive schoolgirl Cecile, who is in love with her music teacher, Danceny, but gives her virginity to Valmont at his insistence that she needs practice before sleeping with the man of her dreams. All the while Valmont’s eyes are set on the beautiful but rather priggish Madame de Tourvel, whose insistence on her virtue and her love for her absent husband makes her a wonderful challenge for the libertine Valmont.

The Marquise de Merteuil sets Valmont a challenge that he won’t succeed with Tourvel, and in fact works against him, because the prize if he wins is getting to sleep with her again which she does not want. She helps him seduce Cecile, however, because she is engaged to a lover who once spurned the Marquise and she wants his young bride not to be a virgin on the night her old lover takes his young, convent-educated bride to bed.  In the meantime, Merteuil takes as a lover Danceny, the music teacher Cecile wants to elope with. The plot evolves from there, through betrayals and counter betrayals, and in the end the ruin of all of the characters, and the death of a few.  It’s an odd book, amusing despite the bleak world it portrays, and fascinating, like the proverbial train wreck.

The Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont are much older than my characters, but I started wondering what they would have been like as teenagers. What might their first schemes have been?  My novel leaves Anne-Mathilde and Jacques-Mars while they are still in their teens, and although their plots are damaging enough, they are rather unambitious compared to those of the full blown villains in Laclos’ novel.  I want to avoid plot spoilers, so I’ll just say that Lili and Delphine, the main characters in Finding Emilie, both become targets, and Delphine has a narrow escape.  The mousy little foil, Josephine, who is Anne-Mathilde’s “best friend,” is not so lucky.

So that’s how it works when I’m thinking through how to populate a novel. I’m not the first one to imagine what life was like in the Ancien Regime, in the years just before the French Revolution.  It’s great to have sources like Laclos and filmmakers like Stephen Frears (who based Dangerous Liaisons on a play adaptation by Christopher Hampton), and Milos Forman, whose film Valmont is based on the same story.  Their vision helps mine to grow, and the result in Finding Emilie is a prequel I hope lovers of French literature will get a little extra pleasure from reading. For others, all I will say is I think you’ll find in Anne-Mathilde and Jacques-Mars two characters you’ll love to hate.

To read more about Emilie, Laurel and her other books read here. To see Laurel’s event calendar so you might meet her in person, check here. To purchase or read reader reviews, click here.

Ask the queen: Are they ready for the Change?

The only queen of France who matters, Marie Antoinette, runs a Sunday advice column in this space. To have the queen weigh in on your life quandary, email whatwouldmarieantoinettedo at gmail dot com.

Your royal highness, I’m up for a promotion. Initially, I was excited about the ideas I have for the job but now I’m worried that only I’m excited about making changes. I don’t want a lot of push back and negativity. What should I do?
-Not yet working for the change

I made my own changes in my day. The intensely public life of a French queen meant that I was on display 24 hours a day even as a dauphine. I’d been raised in a more informal court in Austria and knew that pomp and ceremony did not need to be a constant element of a ruler’s day. In desperate need of some work / home balance and I did away with the things that made me crazy.

Old way: I was surrounded by strangers, older women, never my own confidants or women my age.
New way: I put people I knew and was comfortable with in the positions closest to me.

Old way: I’d stand naked and freezing while various princesses and courtiers entered at their whim to help me dress (the lever).
New way: I made my lever, or dressing ceremony, private and aided by friends and professionals in hairstyling and fashion.

Old way: No male guests could attend supper when members of the royal family were present.
New way: Family-style supper with royals of both sexes as guests.

Old way: No female princess could be in the presence of an unrelated male until she turned 25.
New way: Courtiers such as the Marquis de Bombelles could stay in the room on occasions when Madame Elisabeth, Louis XVI’s sister, visited his wife.

Old way: I was followed by 2 dames du palais anywhere she went.
New way: I was followed only by a page.

Were the changes rocky? Yes. Courtiers thought it was unbecoming of a monarch to walk without attendants, to frolic with her children and to spend time away from court. My detractors, jealous to lose positions so close to the queen, accused me of looseness and depravity. For me, it was worth the risk. The old system was driving me crazy and for me it was worth the risk. At the very end, only the King enjoyed the fuller ceremonies of the court. At the very night of the royal family’s escape to Varennes, he still participated in the full coucher and had a valet sleeping at the foot of his bed. (The Valet wore a ribbon tied to his finger that the King could pull should he need anything, the original instant message system.)

Your situation is much better than mine. You can engage your colleagues so they have ownership of the changes, something I could not do in my time. Realize that if you think you really can’t make these changes, and that they aren’t ready at all, you probably can’t stay at this company. However, it seems your superiors might be looking for a top-down revolution, led in part by you. Your company recognizes your vision. It’s time for you to agree.

What do you think? Did the queen get it right? Weigh in on the issue in the comments.

Royal Wedding! Teal and Tangerine Marie Antoinette Wedding

Kate and Will have nothing on Marie and Louis. The masters at Cake Opera have been at it again and this time with a Marie Antoinette Royal Wedding. The Toronto baker’s efforts have been captured by wedding mag WedLuxe. Cake Opera, you’ll remember from my posts here and here, is a pastry shop run by a former historian and a sculptor. The efforts are completely Marie-worthy and I’ll post a sample here.

vendors:

Produced by: Savoir Flare
Photography: Cloud Nine Creative
Stationery: Sweet Peony Press 
Floral Design: Stemz
Dessert Table + Macaron Favors: Cake Opera Co.
Photographed on Location at: Berkeley Church
Calligraphy: Barbara Kua
Rentals and Linen on Dining + Sweets Tables: Chair-man Mills
Linen on Champagne Table: Have A Seat
Fine China: William Ashley

To see more photos, check out the very gawk-worthy WedLuxe

Ask the Queen: Am I on the way out?

As proof of your good fortune, the last queen of France runs a weekly advice column from this space. If you need guidance or a willing ear, send an email to the queen at whatwouldmarieantoinettedo at gmail dot com to be answered on Sundays.

Ilustrations of me as a harpy should have been my first hint.

My queen,

I love my job but lately cutbacks have meant changes and I’m worried that a major project I work on will be taken away and given to outside contractors to save costs. Lately, there have been meetings that have been scheduled without me and all signs point to something major. What do I do?

-The Redundant

There are signs when your time is up. Closed door meetings. Reassigned projects. No one looking you in the eye.

Wusses.

French Revolutionaries were a little more direct. When they wanted you, they came and got you. In my case, a motley crew of fisherwomen, peasants, and men dressed as women (and those unlucky enough to be near any of those people) trekked 13.6 miles on foot to Versailles to forcibly bring the King and Queen to the French capital. They walked them back while parading the heads of the royal guard on pikes.

The message was clear. We will address your performance issues.

If only the real world were that black and white. It’s almost enviable. Instead of resentful co-workers who re-do your work while muttering under their breath, you could have people dedicated to engaging you. A team committed to the change. And really, if people walked with you carrying a head on a pike, wouldn’t you be persuaded to listen?

Today’s French people are just as direct. In 2009, French workers got into a nasty habit called “bossnapping”– kidnapping a boss to protest furloughs, layoffs and business closures. A poll by CSA showed 45 percent of French people surveyed approved of the practice. An FOP survey for Paris Match had only 7 percent condemning the practices. 63 percent did not approve but understood. It was like Les Misérables meets The Office.

Technically, “bossnapping” is the clumsy English  equivalent for the more elegant “séquestration.” They’re sequestering you. That’s not scary. They’re not mad at you, silly. They just want to talk. That’s it. Just talk.

The world for me and Louis was changing during the revolution. My French relatives and friends had long ago left for safer borders. Some were trying to rule France from abroad. My life, and my family’s were clearly at stake. But to be honest, even we were slow to realize it. We were cautious but the change makers were bold. We could have easily been the changemakers ourselves if we’d ever seen ourselves in that role.

Take stock of your situation. Think first about how things are, not about how you’d like it to be or how it was. Is it likely to improve or worsen? Now ask yourself what your main advantages are: likely that you’re still at the company and at one time had been chosen for a valued project. Do you think there are other projects in your future at this company? Are you treading water and would benefit from a fresh start? Is there a perfect change you can envision? Your own personal revolution?

Don’t pussy foot about your own future. Stress your contributions to the firm ask for direct responses regarding the  changes you don’t yet understand. If you’d like to be those contractors (and have done the math on how that would work) suggest it. If you think you can shape this new change, ask for an opportunity to help. From your employer’s responses you can guess if there’s a future role for you (vague references to “we” and future projects are good; Too much talk of “you” and “changed direction” could mean an end).

Regardless, take a page out of the revolutionaries book and be ready to make the change you ache for. Network to gauge your options outside the firm. Work on a project you care about on the side. Your change will not be easy, it will not be pretty.  But you will at least stop wondering and waiting when it will come to you (as we often did) and put your own wheels in motion.

What do you think? Did the Queen get it right? Put your suggestions in the comments.

Pink Marie Art, Oklahoma Cupcake Bar and Vintage gowns

Modern Marie Art: Check out this fun Etsy Illustrator Leilani Joy (whose portfolio of fun fashion-y, anime inspired portraits are worth a look-see.)

Prettiness at BHLDN
The vintage-loving geniuses who brought you Anthropologie began a special occasion dress line (and wedding gown line) this spring. I am not planning a wedding, but love their dresses and fascinators and shoes and if I had a $2K+ dress budget, would be purchasing the dress below. Do check out the web site. The photography is lovely, photos are paired with love poetry, and you can get deep in vintage photos posted just for fun as well as a Polyvore-esque MoodBoard program where you can create your own layouts of photos of yours and theirs that inspire you and make you feel happy.

Marie Antoinette CupCake Bar in Oklahoma!
I have a girlfriend I’ve been meaning to visit in Oklahoma and now have one more reason. Pinkitzel Cupcake Bakery & Candy Store (Email : info@pinkitzel.com, Facebook, Twitter). is completely my kind of place. It offers coffees, a soda bar, candy and parties. Take a Look. While you ogle, let me know of cool places you love that I should be featuring in my blog.