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What Made Royal Flower Girl Grace Van Cutsem So Grumpy?
Grumpy Grace is all one could have expected from a three-year-old.
Looks like one of the most enduring images from yesterday’s royal wedding isn’t of the royal newlyweds, Prince William and Kate. Rather, of a frowning little girl wearing a crown of flowers and a frown while she covers her ears and ignores a kissing couple.
What was up with little Grace Van Cutsem, the frowning flower girl? What went wrong? Did cameras just capture her in a bad moment?
Judging from pictures taken throughout the day, she was never really into the wedding. Why wasn’t Grace smiling, even in the official royal wedding picture? Was she being an entitled little brat?
No, not at all. Grace Van Cutsem is 3. That’s why she wasn’t smiling.
Having gotten past the defiant threes twice, I’m surprised little Grace hasn’t already torn off that crown of flowers and thrown it from the balcony.
Dig through some pictures and what you see is little Grace Van Cutsem doing very little smiling and a whole lot of just getting through the day. Which, really, can you ask anything more of a 3-year-old? Even the official photos of the royal wedding, released by Clarence House, show a Grace Van Cutsem ready to be done with it all. She’s got that glazed-over look a 3-year-old gets when the clock strikes hour two past naptime as she stands there knitting her fingers, one loud noise — one request to, “no, Grace love, look over this way” away from a humdinger of a meltdown.
If this is what makes the official cut, I can only imagine the shots that didn’t.
But that’s 3 for you! Self-possessed, defiant, constantly hungry, constantly tired (yet with too much energy to go to sleep). The royal couple was taking a risk when they asked Prince William’s god-daughter to be a central part of their day. Judging from the balcony scenes, the two didn’t let Grace’s ear-covering ruin their day.
As for Grace, those pictures will follow her everywhere. When she cracks her first public smile in, oh, about a year, we’ll be seeing before and after shots, mark my word.
But the people I really feel for are Grace’s parents. I’m sure they were sweating bullets the whole day, just waiting to be told to come get their child, that she’s picking the petals off the royal wedding flowers one-by-one.
Three. You can’t win! You can just get through.
The other royal children in attendance did just fine. Because they weren’t 3 years old.
Photo: famecrawler
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8 Comments
cheri commented on Apr 30 11 at 2:02 pmMan, I think If I had been the bride….with the roar of the crowds, and all that attention on MY wedding day, I would have been grumpy and covered my ears too. Poor little thing!
Frowning Flower Girl commented on Apr 30 11 at 7:06 pmBest Twitter stream ever about her:
http://twitter.com/FrownFlowerGirl
SLH commented on May 01 11 at 3:29 amI have three granddaughters with varying forms of autism and this little girl exhibits some of the hallmark symptoms of this disorder. Her parents may still be unaware (this is common with milder forms of this disorder until the children reach 4 or 5 years of age). I don’t believe she was just tired and overwhelmed, hopefully I’m wrong.
Barney commented on May 01 11 at 5:10 amAnother good reason never to invite kids to a wedding. It’s not cute how that brat ruined the romantic picture of the happy couple. And come on, I bet she wasn’t hungry or tired or whatever. Most of today’s kids are unfortunately spoiled brats who can’t be arsed to be just a bit considerate of others. Their parents just don’t teach them manners anymore. And the article here shows exactly why that is the case: parents don’t feel any responsibility, they just make excuses. “You can’t win” – hello? Of course you can! With a bit of effort and discipline you can teach a child how to behave properly. But that’s apparently asking too much of today’s parents.
LogicalMama commented on May 01 11 at 5:25 pmGeez, Barney, are you actually a parent?! Yes, we are all spoiling our kids b/c when we ask our three year olds to be considerate and they aren’t, it’s all our faults. Oh yes, they are our little performance monkeys and do exactly what we tell them to do exactly as requested and when!!!! They haven’t minds of their own. Maybe they should have put a shock collar on her to zap her into submission every time she frowned!!!!
FuckYouBarney commented on May 03 11 at 9:51 pmGoshhh..!! how could be anyone is so childish than a three year old little kid. Us adult should understand why she’s frowning. We should all know that she dont know what she’s doing.
jeni commented on May 04 11 at 8:24 amI agree with SLH. She may have a Sensorial Disorder. She did the best she could to put up with the stress, noise etc. Others would have had a tantrum by that stage. It’s nothing to do with being spoilt or not. If your ears don’t filter the sounds out properly you hear too much and all the wrong stuff. She probably only heard the roars and not what kind people around her were saying to her to help. A visit to the INPP to get a check up might help. I wish her parents well, if it’s that, there’s a long road ahead.
Kat commented on Jun 28 11 at 11:22 amI have sensory disorders and with therapy I do just fine. But, it could have simply been too much for a normal 3yr old. But, she does display signs of it. Who knows? We’re not her parents, we’re judging from a few pictures taken on a highly stressful and most likely BORING day for a 3yr old.
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