Ellen Gray: Anyway you look at it, this wedding's a yawner

NEWS FLASH: You do not have to get up at 4 or 5 or even 6 a.m. tomorrow to witness the recording of the world's most over-the-top wedding video.

Not only did we fight a war to be freed of such obligations - or at least to be freed from paying for them - but a lot has changed in the 30 years since Americans were last suckered into rising before dawn to watch a Wedding to End All Weddings.

We now have DVRs. And YouTube.

So, in the remote chance that something fun actually happens before, during or after the joining of Britain's Prince William and his longtime girlfriend, Kate Middleton - you think she's maybe going to run screaming from the Abbey, or that Camilla's hat will catch fire? - I promise you, you're covered.

More than covered. Blanketed.

TV's all over this one. If you do get up, there'll be some coverage, somewhere, as early as 3 a.m. - for a ceremony scheduled to start at 6 - and if you stay in bed, you'll have multiple opportunities to watch it in reruns well into tomorrow night, and in some cases, beyond that.

Or, if you prefer, you could take your laptop to bed and surf on Hulu.com, which plans to stream feeds from multiple outlets.

As someone who'd have been unwilling to get up at 3 or 4 for her own wedding, I'm not exactly seeing the point of self-induced jet lag. I mean, even the notoriously royal-centric British media, for whom the wedding's at a civilized hour, don't seem as interested as we do.

Since the couple's engagement was announced last November, U.S. media outlets have devoted a higher percentage of their overall space to Will and Kate than their counterparts in Britain have, according to a recent Nielsen analysis of the online sites of newspapers, magazines and wire services.

(No word on whether it's also been greater than the fuss we made about "Jon & Kate" and their eight children, but I'm guessing not.)

For months now, I've been bombarded with emails about wedding-related coverage (not to mention wild pitches, like the one that exploited Will's rapidly rising hairline to tout its baldness treatment).

Most didn't tell me anything you don't already know: The wedding's on television.

But for those looking for something a little different, here are a few possibilities for:

_ Spanish-speaking royal enthusiasts: Univision plans live coverage beginning at 3 a.m.; V-me starts at 4 a.m.

_ Exiled Brits: BBC America will simulcast BBC One's live coverage beginning at 3 a.m. For those who don't get the channel, coverage of the wedding itself will stream live at BBC.com/royalwedding beginning at 5:45 a.m.

_ Perez Hilton fans: He and NeNe Leakes ("The Celebrity Apprentice") will wax witty on all things wedding-related in the optimistically titled "Will + Kate Forever" (7 p.m., WE tv).

_ Bitter brides: Investigation Discovery capitalizes on the so-far-happy couple with a "So You Think You Married a Prince?" marathon featuring Season 1 reruns of its series "Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry?" (5 p.m. Saturday, Investigation Discovery).

_ Hard-core haters: Tori Spelling - described as "TV royalty" - will join the usual suspects in a special edition of "Fashion Police" (10 p.m., E!) to talk funny hats and, of course, The Dress.

If you do have time for a bit of live news coverage tomorrow, how about the final launch of the space shuttle Endeavour?

The next-to-the-last shuttle to fly is scheduled to lift off at 3:47 p.m. from Cape Canaveral, with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., in attendance. Giffords, who's recovering from a gunshot wound she suffered during a Jan. 8 meeting with constituents in which six people were killed and 19 wounded, will be seeing off her astronaut husband, Capt. Mark Kelly.

PBS' "NewsHour," meanwhile, is looking forward to 2:15 p.m. Monday, when it's teaming up with YouTube and Google for a live chat with mission commander Kelly and crew, moderated by science correspondent Miles O'Brien.

To submit a question (deadline's 12:59 p.m. Saturday), go to www.pbs.org/newshour or www.youtube.com/pbsnewshour. On Twitter, tweet your query using the hashtag #utalk2nasa. *

Send email to graye@phillynews.com.