Bring on the Bridesmaids

My American friends all sent me off back to Blighty with some variation on, "Don't forget your hat for the wedding!"  Sadly I could only retort with the lame old chestnut, "Oh yes, that wedding. We did get invited but we don't really feel like going." 
I'm not going to add to the vast array of comment, except on one thing. I had been concerned, that, unlike with previous Royal weddings,  we hadn't had an announcement about who the bridesmaids and pages were going to be. As I remember, that would normally come some weeks before the event, throwing a bone to the avid Royal-watchers waiting impatiently for the Big Day. But this time, nothing. It got me worried. I was very alarmed that the American connection would prevail and there would be an American-style wedding, with adult bridesmaids in grotesque, skimpy dresses, sashaying up the aisle, smirking, one by one in advance of the bride like a fashion parade and then lining up beside the couple with the same number of "groomsmen" on the other side. Not just one happy couple but six or eight, or even more. But now, at last, the news is out and I'm vastly relieved to see that they are doing it British-style, with a lot of small bridesmaids and pages.

That's the proper British way and kinder to less-than-svelte girlfriends of the bride, who would otherwise have to be crammed into glorified corsets and individually gawped at by the congregation as they pass. You can't go wrong with small children, who look sweet no matter what they're wearing. Speaking of which,  I've noticed, in some uneducated quarters of the British media,  the creeping Americanism of calling child bridesmaids "flower girls". They are not. They are bridesmaids, OK? American weddings might have one little girl scattering rose petals and a little boy in a suit carrying the ring on a cushion. They are the flower girl and ring bearer and they should stay where they are - in America.