The Royal Wedding: Wills & Kate Plus 8 (hours)

Here’s my blow-by-blow take on The Royal Wedding as it appears online at The Toronto Star. The Star has a lavish, photo-packed Royal Wedding section Saturday, a great souvenir for fans of the royal family.
I set my royal alarm clock for 3:30 a.m. to check in on the coverage Friday morning but some networks, like CBC, began their coverage at 2 a.m. Among the 300 networks covering the event internationally were CBC, CTV, Global, Citytv, CNN, CBCNN, CTVNC, Sun News, RDI, ABC, CBS, NBC, BBCC, MSNBC, CPAC, TLC and Vision.
The first thing I learned when I stumbled in front of the set at 3:38 a.m. was that Westminster Abbey was chosen as the site of the wedding for its “more intimate feel.” That must have made the 1900 guests feel cozy.
CTV’s fashionista Jeanne Beker, bold in blue, balanced a goofy plate full of feathers on her noggin, giving her a touch of Who down in Whoville elegance. Hers was the first of about a thousand bizarre head warmers I encountered, including one tall stack of loops worn by a member of the wedding party that looked like a Wipeout prop.
CTV’s corner countdown clock ticked off how much time was left till the wedding, at this point about the length of a full hockey broadcast.
Over on ABC, where Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters shared a parade desk, some NYC professor was already opining that “if this goes wrong I think the British monarchy is really finished.”
It all actually went off without a hitch, a tremendous, worldwide ad for Britain, Inc. Read more about the live coverage here, including the bits cut out of the Stars print section like:

4:15: The Becks hit the carpet and all networks trained cameras on Victoria’s spider-y hat, which looked like it could pick up a digital UHF signal. Somebody cracked that Beckham looked like one of the Thunderbirds.
5:35: Cracks were made about the drab grey vans dropping off members of the wedding party. The family had the real rides. Charles and Camilla were shown arriving in the Rotweillermobile.

And on it went until around 8:40 a.m. It all got packaged and re-sold Friday night and will likely replay all weekend on CNN. Cheerio.