The seaside wedding ceremony in Hawaii which was yesterday interrupted when a crashing wave broke over the happy couple — God’s take on outdoor weddings — could be replicated all over England and Wales if the proposals from the Law Commission are finally implemented. Weddings in beaches, fields, ditches, family living rooms, you name it, practically anywhere will potentially be a venue for a wedding. And cruise ships. Obviously.
My own view is that the fancier the ceremony, the more outré the setting, the shorter the duration of the actual union. The change also makes it more that bit more likely that the guests will have to travel to godforsaken places to see their friends and relations getting married on a rock off Land’s End or a field next to Hadrian’s Wall. Weddings are already mind-blowingly expensive — this will make some more so.It’s weird, isn’t it, that just as marriage rates are at historically low levels, the weddings get bigger and fatter?
Just what is it that makes couples think that what their friends really want is to spend four days at a venue far from home — often abroad — with them to celebrate their nuptials with the maximum expense? There’s the pre-party, the post-party, the ceremony, the flight. One friend told me that her nephew was getting married in Nice, a place where he has no family connections and the whole thing is going to set her back a thousand quid. “Frankly”, she said, “I’d rather give them the money.” As you should: couples trying to buy a home shouldn’t be squandering the price of a deposit on their celebrations.
Once weddings were cheerful but at the same time solemn affairs, conducted soberly in a church or other place of worship or a nice dull register office. In a previous generation, it was followed by sandwiches, cake and tea or champagne, or if you are Irish, by a slapup lunch. My mother didn’t even have a wedding dress; she repurposed a dance dress and it looked great. You know, your commitment to your union isn’t registered by the expense of the ceremony. I possess a Reader’s Digest cookbook with a menu for a wedding breakfast for 20 or 50, which would cost, at present rates, £200 with drink.
That wave that crashed over the nuptials in Hawaii is telling us something: keep weddings simple.
