I will freely admit it: I am an absolute ninny, nerd, doorknob, when it comes to royal weddings.

Never mind the fact that Paul and I have been happily cohabitating for 27 years as common-law-white-trash (there never seems to be a box with that term to tic when filling out tax and medical forms, I find), I just love the pomp and pageantry.

It’s the girliest thing about me; while I grab a paper towel to wipe the sweat from the back of my neck after barn chores, I’m enchanted by news items that flash across the screen: who is making the dress? What will be the decorating theme? Which carriage will drive them to St. George’s Chapel at Windsor? And the hats! Whom will be wearing whose hats?! (Sounds rather like a Dr Seuss title, that.)

And sorry, guys, if Aunty Pam is boring you to tears with this column, but the build-up to a royal wedding is as close to your pre-game Super Bowl frenzy as we women can get. All of chickdom around the globe will be glued to the screen (pre-recorded for our time zone, natch) to the point where I can assure you that there will be mass ovulation. And woe be upon any of you gents should your posterior block the TV while croaking, “Are we out of Hot Pockets?”

Girlfriends will be inviting each other over for champers and nibbles as they ooh and ahh (or cattily disparage) Meghan’s dress, and nod in agreement that isn’t it wonderful that Harry finally grew up and found true love. Those with challenging in-laws will wince with sympathy over the hubbub concerning Meghan’s father, and how wonderful her mother is to be on-deck to assist.

And Princess Charlotte, at 2, as a flower girl! That’s risky, isn’t it? Remember William as a child at Andrew and Fergie’s wedding? Oh, you should have seen him, adorable but so naughty!

And the cake!! The New Yorker reports that the cake will be lemon and elderflower — a delicate departure from royal wedding cakes of the past, which have always been fruitcakes, enveloped with a layer of marzipan the thickness of pizza dough, and an inch of hardened white sugar that might very well have something to do with the stereotypical origins of the English having terrible teeth.

And the weight this creates! For example, when Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip were married in 1947, their cake had four tiers and tipped the scales at — wait for it — 500 pounds!

Queen Victoria’s was a single layer behemoth that spanned an unbelievable 10 feet across. Why so heavy? 

Two words: fruit and booze.

Now, before you go all Claxton on me with your abhorrence of fruitcake, keep in mind English fruitcake is far different than what we Yanks are used to, and, in the days when a wedding cake had to be made for a few hundred guests, there was no refrigeration. To keep a cake from molding, you added dried fruit that wouldn’t spoil, followed by a hefty drenching of brandy or whiskey, so I’m quite sure that a nibble from any of the nearly century-old pieces of saved royal wedding cake slices is far safer for us than, say, a salad made from romaine lettuce.

This liberal usage of alcohol also gave both bride and groom a bellyful of Dutch courage should it be an arranged marriage with neither finding the other at all appealing.

So don’t worry, men, we girlfriends and wives will return to you from this gilded gossamer royal reverie, this enchanted break from the routine, in plenty of time to chart the kids’ soccer practice and help shop for a birthday gift for your mother. 

Just don’t despair if you hear some of us utter a wistful sigh from time to time in the days that follow…it’s nothing more than a soft landing.