Thirty years later in April 2011, when Prince William, the son of the late Diana and Charles, the Prince of Wales, married Catherine Middleton in April 2011 it took the world by storm with its immense coverage, similar to the wedding of William’s brother, Harry, to US actress Meghan Markle in 2018.

Even Russia’s first “royal wedding” – featuring a descendant of the Russian imperial throne, held by the Romanov family whose dynasty was toppled by the 1917 Bolshevik revolution toppled the Romanov monarchy – was talked about on social media.

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First ‘royal’ wedding in Russia since the 1917 revolution draws aristocrats from across Europe

First ‘royal’ wedding in Russia since the 1917 revolution draws aristocrats from across Europe

Asia’s royals

In East and Southeast Asia, six countries are still led by monarchs reigning as the heads of state, with limited or ultimate powers.

Japan, with 1,500 years of history and royal lineages, lays claim to the world’s oldest continuous hereditary monarchy, similar to nations such as Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Brunei and Bhutan.

In Cambodia, King Norodom Sihamoni acts as a symbolic figurehead but others are absolute monarchs like Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.

Malaysia’s Agong (king) has the power to appoint high-ranking officer holders like the prime minister and is also the head of Islam in the nation.

In Indonesia, the city of Yogyakarta in Central Java is governed as a sultanate by ruler Hamengku Buwono X. While the country is led by political rulers, there are numerous small kingdoms that are increasingly trying to revive their public roles.

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Thai king reinstates titles for once-disgraced royal consort

Thai king reinstates titles for once-disgraced royal consort

The influence and power of Asia’s royals continue to make them objects of fascination for regular people. Weddings in particular are closely watched.

In May 2019, King Vajiralongkorn stunned the Thai public when he married the deputy chief of his personal guard just days before his coronation.

With photos of the ceremony featured in global media, Thai television channels broadcast the footage of the ceremony, which included the king pouring sacred water over the new queen’s head, throughout the evening.

An Instagram post by Bhutan’s charismatic King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck announcing the wedding of his half-sister to Queen Jetsun Pema’s younger brother last year in October garnered more than 22,000 likes.

Princess Tunku Tun Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah, the only daughter of the powerful Johor sultan, married Dutchman Dennis Muhammad Abdullah in a lavish wedding in 2017.

The streets of the southern Malaysian state were redecorated with the state flags and the public watched the “sitting-in-state” ceremony held at the royal palace, Istana Besar, on a big screen erected in the main city square of Johor Bahru, its capital.

Photos of the event were leaked and it was reported that stage performers, acrobats, magicians and popular singers graced the stage, entertaining a closed group of guests.

The reaction back in Malaysia, however, was less enthusiastic as Sultan Muhammad was still serving as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.

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The Agong is also known as the Supreme Head of the Federation, formally elected to a five-year term by and from the nine rulers of Malay states as part of a rotation system with the nine sultanates of Malaysia.

Sultan Muhammad abdicated the throne on January 6, 2019. He divorced Voevodina months later in June amid widespread speculation about why the relationship ended.

Long before the Malaysian royals graced the front pages of local and international newspapers, Brunei’s Princess Majeedah Nuurul Bulqiah celebrated her wedding to Khairul Khalil for two weeks in 2007.

The marriage for the daughter of the Sultan of Brunei was not modest in any way, when the oil-rich country fired cannons to mark the occasion and the couple was driven around in a gold-coloured Roll Royce, as streets were lined with thousands of people waiting to get a glimpse of the princess.

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Professor Dennis Altman, Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at Australia’s La Trobe University, said although many nations had abolished their monarchies, such as China and Russia, around 40 countries in the world still had reigning monarchies.

The fascination with the rulers from the past never dies, added Altman, the author of the book, God Save the Queen: the strange persistence of monarchies.

“Stories about royal families are popular everywhere. I think this is due to a mixture of nostalgia, nationalism and celebrity worship,” he said. “The lives and tragedies of royal families are a constant presence in our lives and many people identify with them.”

Altman said that there were different models of power across Asia, and monarchs in countries such as Brunei and Thailand still possessed considerable political power.

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Of 46 nations that currently have reigning monarchies, most exist in a constitutional system, with the monarch having minimal authority and the halls of power concentrated within an elected government.

Saad Salman, an observer who runs the Royal Watcher website, said the monarchy represented a mystic link to culture and history; in a world where children grow up reading fairy tales, contemporary royal families embody many people’s fantasies.

Salman said although many modern monarchs do not have much actual authority, they were able to provide checks and balances in government.

“Their apolitical role gives them greater admiration than the decisiveness of electoral politics, and thus many people identify with a neutral stance embodied by most monarchs,” he told This Week In Asia.