By the time you read this today - even before we publish this today - the future King of England, Prince William, and his new bride, Princess Catherine, will be married, have gained new titles (Duke And Dutchess of Cambridge), and will have been celebrating for some time at Windsor Castle.
To be frank, while we admire some of the pomp and circumstance of such a massive event, the media circus that goes with it is something we could do without.
We think the most important part of the young royals' wedding will be the same as any other wedding of two people we hope to see live a long and happy life together - the marriage.
Every current member of our staff has been with their spouse for a long, long time. Even though we have all been involved in professional pursuits that - at times - have had our significant others concerned about our finances (if not our sanity), our spouses have allowed us to work in cartooning, broadcasting & media, and language translation & editing without much complaint or persuasion to choose other, more lucrative, career paths.
To say our spouses are fantastic is an understatement. They've all been nominated for sainthood, in our hearts, for standing beside each of us every step along the way.
We understand, in part thanks to our careers, some of the kinds of twists and turns that Kate and William will likely experience. Everyone thinks that the royal family members have life easy - and in some ways, they do. We doubt, for example, that either William or Kate will ever go truly hungry. The benefits of their station are enormous and unique, much as many of our own benefits are to us. The people we know, and the connections we have, make us blush sometimes at what seems like our sheer dumb luck. While we rarely acknowledge it publicly, we often wonder how we got to such fantastic places in our lives.
There is a price to pay for that good fortune, however - for us, as well as for William and Kate.
The responsibilities we have are heavy and many. For example, we will be, once again, traveling this weekend, to several events and meetings, and our abilities to truly rest will be limited, as they often are when our duties and loyalties call us away from our reading corners and couches. But as we noted, we've been blessed with some incredible people in our lives, and we're more than happy to trade a few harried trips down the interstate, and through airports, in order to collect the benefits of friendship and our careers that we've been so lucky to obtain.
To whatever degree you have been blessed, we're sure you also understand about the weight of your responsibilities, and the benefits of your own place in life too.
We also know that those benefits are always made sweeter by having our significant others in our lives, to share those great moments with them.
In the midst of all the hustle and bustle this weekend, we hope that Kate and Will do what we entreat all newly married couples to do: take a minute, just a moment, to be with each other, not as prince and princess, or media celebrities - but just as a couple of people who care about each other deeply.
We hope they take our suggestion for a momentary holiday from the craziness of their own wedding day to celebrate the one thing that always has gotten each of us through our own difficult times in life.
Our very significant others.
May you have a moment of your own this weekend to share with the people you care about most.
