(The Nationalist, 6 August 1999)
A friend of mine, an accountant, told me recently about a wedding he attended not long ago. As weddings go it was above average on the social pecking order. Some 250 guests sat down to the reception and about 300 stayed for the ‘extras’ in the evening. Along with that there were the usual accessories: the big cars, the flowers, the photos and videos, the expensive dresses and suits, and all the rigmarole that go with weddings nowadays.
Assessing it all with his accountant’s eye, he estimated the cost at between fifteen and twenty thousand pounds. My reaction, on hearing of something like that, is to ask whether people have not gone more than a little crazy. Does it make sense to spend that kind of money on one day? What’s the motivation behind it? Is it really to make the young couple happy? Is it not, rather, to make a social impression, not merely to keep up with the Joneses but to get ahead of them and show them who’s got money and status and power? If that’s what’s behind it, it doesn’t have anything to do with the Christian meaning of the sacrament of matrimony.
What is necessary for the sacrament is a man and woman who are prepared to commit themselves to each other exclusively for life in the presence of a priest as witness on behalf of the church. The rest is a trimming. It’s not the church that’s creating the pressure for fancy wedding receptions – far from it. Priests that I have spoken to on the subject long for a simple ceremony with reverence, dignity, and a Christian commitment on the part of the couple.
How do the young people themselves feel about it? Their wedding day is the biggest day in their lives, and it’s right that it should be accompanied by a real and generous celebration. But is it not sometimes the case that parents wanting to make an impression or to cultivate business contacts hijack their big day? Is that fair? Does it not leave the young couple with the feeling of being short-changed, or even of being used?
If parents can afford to spend fifteen thousand pounds on a wedding, would it not make more sense to devote five thousand of that to the reception, and give the other ten towards a building site or a mortgage? Which is better: to give 250 people the opportunity of getting drunk out of their skulls at someone else’s expense, or to take several years off a young couple’s mortgage payments? When the carnations are wilted, the champagne as stale as bog water, and the photos are put away in an album on a shelf, what will matter most to the couple themselves? Does anyone ask them?
Are we so much the slaves of fashion and trendiness and being “with it” that we are afraid to go against the grain and stand for a little sanity against all the hype and fuss?