You love them. You really love them.
It's been six months since Kate Middleton waved goodbye to her life as a commoner (happy anniversary!) and it seems that royal well-wishers are almost as happy for the couple as Kate and Prince William themselves, as it emerged today that the newlyweds have been positively drowning in fan letters and cards, having received roughly 60,000 pieces of correspondence since their wedding day.
Those subjects aren't just loyal—they're positively gushing. And as proven by the Today show this morning, that holds true on both sides of the pond.
Having meticulously covered every aspect of Will and Kate's nuptials this past spring, the royal wedding party was too perfect a costume idea to pass up for the morning show team, and this morning they pulled out all the stops, introducing themselves with footage of, well, themselves, commentating live from outside Buckingham Palace.
Cut to Rockefeller Center, where one by one the team emerged from their own Rolls Royces wearing outfits that were perfect matches for their royal doppelgangers. Matt Lauer, naturally was Prince William, while the role of ginger younger brother Prince Harry was filled by…Al Roker? OK, so they weren't all perfect fits. Natalie Morales brought up the rear, literally, by channeling Pippa Middleton, while Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford played the fascinator-donning royal cousins Beatrice and Eugenie.
The morning wasn't without its surprises, as Queen Elizabeth made a late arrival—none other than Meredith Vieira made her return this morning as HRH to the surprise, by the looks of things, to her former cohorts.
We're not sure they should be checking their mailboxes for royal thanks for their costume-abetted love letter to the monarchy, but plenty of other people should.
A royal aide let slip to the British press today that Will and Kate have indeed received tens of thousands of letters from the public, and that the couple is intent on responding to each and every one of them.
"There has been a vast, vast amount," the anonymous aide said. "It was just lovely, given that they were all supportive messages, whether it be cards or little letters. There's a team working on it and everyone who wrote in got a response."
Or at least they will if they provided a return address.
"There's only one small team and they had a lot to get through. It did take a while to reply to everything."
Per the source, well wishes started pouring in around this time last year, after they announced their engagement, and have been streaming in ever since, peaking, unsurprisingly, around April when they got married.
As for a little historical perspective: when the queen married Prince Philip in 1947, they received just 10,000 letters—most of them, incidentally, telegrams.