Our wedding, 44 years ago come July 14, was in church, in the afternoon. I wore a white dress and a veil and Rob, his best man and my father wore morning dress.
The reception was in a marquee in my parents’ garden: cucumber or egg-and-cress sandwiches, sausage rolls, little cakes and strawberries and cream. To drink: tea or champagne. There were short speeches and cake-cutting, and by 6.30pm we were on our way to Ibiza, where there were no nightclubs, just empty beaches.
It is not only Ibiza that has changed. Mothers who fantasise about orchestrating their daughters’ weddings are in for a shock. Today’s young couples like to arrange their own weddings, and if this makes their parents rather wistful, the good news is that they usually pay for them, too. They are willing and able to pay because of another big change: when I got married at 23, I was nearly on the shelf. Now the average age for first marriages is 29 for women, 31 for men, and rising. Most couples are both earning and probably have several credit cards each.
A very expensive day
They will need those credit cards and probably a second mortgage, too. The average cost of a wedding increases yearly and couples now spend an average of £17,740 on their weddings, including the honeymoon. Some of this goes on exotic locations and themes: marriages take place on ships, in castles, at football grounds, on racecourses, and underwater. Themes are anything from Gothic to country and western.
Extravagant expenditure reflects the couple’s desire to give themselves and their friends the party of a lifetime. But heavily publicised celebrity weddings have some influence, as does pressure from a wedding industry worth £4.2 billion a year. Weddings are big business: shows, websites, magazines all exist to entice money out of wallets. The new profession of wedding consultant has sprung up. “After consulting our clients, we tailor the day to their requirements and make suggestions that may not have been thought of.” You bet they do. Had the bride and groom thought of a chocolate fountain to entertain their guests? They proposed to each other in Venice? Why not hire a gondola, complete with gondolier, to “go away” in? It’s good that the economy is buoyant and people can afford to spend. But bad that, credit being so readily available, many couples start married life in debt. The “must-have” culture is out of hand — but couples do have a choice. Friends of mine were married last Saturday on a budget of £4,000, shared between the couple and her parents. His parents donated the honeymoon. It was a church wedding, with an evening reception for 140 guests. Her parents made the cake (her dad is a retired baker), the local florist did the flowers for the church and reception at modest cost, and the only extras were balloons and bubble stuff to amuse children. A friend who is a professional photographer took pictures in the modern style — no formal groups — and a cousin made an amateur video. The bride wore a stunning red dress. What mattered was being surrounded by family and friends, and she and her new husband glowed with happiness.
Fun for family and friends?
Getting the balance right between family and friends can be tricky. One reason couples prefer to foot the bill themselves is that they can control the guest list. They are afraid that if the parents are paying, they will make the wedding a party for their friends, thereby limiting the number the bride and groom can invite. Some parents, though relieved to have the financial burden lightened, are sad to see their traditional role diminished. But those of us who are parents must accept that our children are proud of their financial independence and want to run their own show.
We hope our children understand that the occasion expresses our hopes and dreams for them as well as their own, and will involve us in their plans, and we should tactfully engineer invitations for elderly cousins — attending may be the highlight of their year, and to leave them out could be hurtful.
But couples increasingly see their wedding as a rite of passage involving their peers rather than family. To make their friends feel loved and wanted, and part of their big day, they involve them with the preparations. But something has gone wrong here. The friend doesn’t actually want to make 160 heart-shaped lollies, or write out by hand the place-cards in beautiful italics. She has already spent precious hours with the bride, talking wedding plans and shopping. Yet she feels she cannot refuse.
For the bride, it is more fun if her friends are involved; and they find it hard to deny her.Friends count the cost in money as well as time. A recent survey found that, after buying an outfit, giving a present, and paying for travel and accommodation, wedding guests get no change out of £300.
Hen and stag parties
The cost of stag and hen weekends must be added to the £300 price tag. I heard about one hen weekend with 40 participants. The bride has 40 best friends? It turned out that she had known some of them for only a few months.
Besides food and drink, hens expect entertainment: a full complement of Chippendales, perhaps, for a really de luxe night out; a single Naked Chef for the economy package. Either way, it all adds up. One bride was so miserable that her friends kept dashing to the off-licence for more booze to pour down her. One pregnant bride remained stone cold sober while her friends got paralytic. She had to put them in taxis home before she could heave a sign of relief.
The cost increases when stag and hen weekends take place abroad. One friend of mine is dreading a hen weekend in Portugal which will cost her hundreds. “Nobody wants to go to hen nights,” she says. “They feel obliged because they have been invited to the wedding.”
A stag night used to be dinner followed by a pub crawl, with half a dozen best mates. How has it become a weekend in Prague with 20 laddish blokes acting like football hooligans? The reason is simple. Stag and hen nights are banned from most British pubs and clubs.
Not all traditions are worth preserving and, at the risk of seeming a spoilsport, I would say nobody would really miss stag and hen nights. Best men and bridesmaids should not feel obliged to organise them, and if guests who don’t want to go for financial or other reasons, should have the courage to refuse.
Getting married abroad
Even more expensive for the guests is the wedding abroad, an increasingly popular option. For the bride and groom, a marriage on a tropical beach in South Africa, St Lucia, Mauritius or Antigua (the most popular venues) can cost a lot less than at home, and in the past two years 24 per cent of marrying couples took the option to merge wedding and honeymoon into a single holiday. One reason given was that the boring relations would not show up. That’s fine for the happy couple, but what about their friends? The best man and bridesmaids cannot opt out and, even with today’s low air fares, it can mean sacrificing their annual holiday. For those saving up to go skiing in the Rockies, it is frustrating to cancel plans to see friends tie the knot on a beach in Thailand.
Wedding presents
Today, most couples live together before marrying and are already equipped for domestic life. Their kitchens and linen cupboards are well stocked, so there seems little point in having a wedding list at a department store. For the guests, a list doesn’t necessarily make life any easier. If you leave it too late, there is nothing left between a £500 decanter and a toothbrush.
Those who think that the bride and groom have a nerve asking for anything that costs more than £100 can be thankful we are not in Hollywood where the sky is the limit as far as the value of presents goes. The prenuptial agreement of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones states that any present worth more than $18,000 (£12,000) would, in the event of a divorce, go back to Michael. How sad to be thinking about the division of spoils before the marriage has happened.
It is now common for couples to ask for cash instead of presents and to my generation this seems greedy. But we are wrong. If we contribute the cash equivalent of casserole dish or salad bowl to their honeymoon, or even to their gas bill, we know that our present is truly wanted. The question is, how much? A fear of being thought mean creeps in. As a guide, young friends tell me that they would spend between £40 and £50 on a present for a fairly close friend, an amount they can often ill afford.
Lately we have been to several 60th and 70th birthday parties. On the invitation it usually says “No presents, please”, a precedent which couples who already have all they need might like to consider following. The latest idea, for couples with a conscience, is to ask for donations to charity in lieu of presents: giving a goat to a family in Africa, for example.
Multiple parents and grandparents
Now that more than half of all marriages end in divorce, some couples muster eight parents (including steps) between them, and as many grandparents. The prospect of quarrels and bad feeling spoiling the big day can cause much anxiety. One couple with step-family problems took the extreme step of writing to all those concerned, begging them to behave well at the wedding. Trouble can be avoided by careful planning, seating estranged or divorced couples apart from their exes at the ceremony and putting them at separate tables at the reception, each among their own friends. There is also no need to press-gang them into standing together for group photographs, their features contorted into rictus smiles.
What’s it all about?
A reliable informant sums up the wedding scene today: “The old marquee on the lawn routine is deemed a bit tired. It’s no longer considered desirable or necessary to get married at one’s parents’ house.” But he also felt that people “are getting quite spoilt”. It may be time to reassess the complex paraphernalia that a wedding has become. One wedding consultant offers, as its most basic package, to “co-ordinate the core elements”. In reality, the core elements are simple: the commitment of two people to a future together; a demonstration of loving support by their family and friends; and a celebration of both. If everything superfluous is jettisoned, all the participants will be happier — and quite a bit richer.
For more advice from Jane, visit www.goodgranny.com
A bride can live without . . .
A hen party in Barcelona or anywhere that involves her friends forking out for travel, an overnight stay and a hangover. A day of spa pampering to relieve pre-wedding stress, with a few friends, is better value. But she definitely must have . . .
A crèche and/or bouncy castle
It is normal for guests to bring their children. Providing entertainment ensures that you and your friends enjoy the party.
Shorts speeches
Decide on the maximum length and make sure all speakers to stick to it. Even five minutes seems long if speakers mumble or mess up their punchlines.
Control over the photographer
At one reception guests waited for three quarters of an hour before drinks appeared because the photographer was bullying the bridal party into group pictures. Maybe a relative with a digital camera could do the job just as well.
A good seating plan
Don’t seat deadly enemies or exes near each other; you’ll regret it for life.
Big days for big names
Weddings are a fascinating phenomenon, but none more so than a celebrity’s big day. And when you are a star, what does money matter? If you’re a half-decent showbiz luvvie, you’ll have it all paid for anyway by a glossy magazine. You simply turn up, look gorgeous, smile for a few hundred photos and enjoy the nibbles — easy!
HANNAH PERRY
It comes as no surprise that the Posh and Becks wedding in 1999 still stands as one of the biggest, most exclusive and arguably over-the-top affairs to date. Luttrellstown Castle, in Dublin, was chosen for the venue and cost £500,000. Victoria wore a Vera Wang dress (£60,000), and with 437 staff, an 18-piece orchestra and a firework display to match the millennium celebrations, the bill was inevitably on the extortionate side. But the Beckhams didn’t need to worry because they had signed a £1 million deal with OK! magazine, which happily picked up the bill.
More recently, Jordan and Peter Andre were paid £400,000 by OK! magazine for the rights to their wedding. Their fairytale big day literally glittered with serious amounts of Swarovski crystal. The 350 guests were entertained in Highclere Castle, in Berkshire, and Jordan made her entrance in a pink horse-drawn “pumpkin carriage”, wearing a pink dress and diamond tiara.
Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s wedding in December 2000 was kept as private as any A-list celeb wedding can be. The nuptials took place in the romantic Skibo Castle, in the heart of the Scottish Highlands.
Media reports of the ceremony say that the queen of pop added extra sparkle to the proceedingts by wearing a diamond tiara, lent to her by a top jeweller, plus an antique French bracelet studded with 19-carat diamonds, a wedding gift from her groom. Her dress was designed by Stella McCartney.
While the wedding of Elton John and David Furnish last year was a fairly low-key affair, with just a few family and friends attending, the party afterwards was a huge star-studded bash. Stacks of the rich and famous celebrated in style in Elton and David’s Windsor pad, with the event covered by the world’s press.
And this year there are many more celeb weddings to look forward to — Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, and Cheryl Tweedy and Ashley Cole to name but a few. We wait with baited breath!
Hannah Perry is news editor of Heat magazine
