12:23pm Thursday 5th August 2010
By The Bride
Yesterday, Dr Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Catherdral, said this: "Too many modern weddings have just lost their way. I'd even say that they've become a threat to marriage itself."
He added: "The truth is: most clergy I know prefer taking funerals to taking weddings."
His criticism is that the industry that is weddings has overshadowed the point of the ceremony, that brides are too "zilla" and not enough "bride".
So what do you think? My take is that he's sort of right: are weddings too expensive? Yes. Do some get distracted by the frippery and forget that what they're actually aiming for is a marriage, a marriage like this?. Yes.
Weddings should be about people, not stuff (and I say that despite the hours I've spent making flowers out of tissue paper.) It seems that in America, there's as much pressure on couples to write a beautiful and moving ceremony as there is for it to be aesthetically perfect.
In Britain, writing your own ceremony is a bit, well, cheesy - but if we thought as much about the words we choose to say, might that help focus us on the act of marriage itself, on the family we're forming and the future we're building instead of the dress we're wearing?
I'm not criticising, by the way, people who spend a lot of money or a little. Your wedding is YOUR wedding and none of anyone else's business.
But I can't help but agree that the expectations, about expense, about what you "have to have" can sometimes overwhelm the real point.
Let me know what you think - and if you know a couple who've been married for decades, do me a favour and ask them what their wedding was like? I'd love to do a post...
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