Wedding season is well under way and magazines and newspapers are full of articles promoting designer venues, dresses and tacky ideas which the gullible think are classy or alternative; no, they aren’t. My granddaughter has recently been a bridesmaid at her friends wedding. The whole shebang has cost a small fortune and she personally has had to shell out for her dress and the hen weekend. Listening to her having a moan about the whole thing got me to thinking about the difference in expectations between my own wedding and those of today and wonder why modern couples feel they have to have a statement wedding. 

Having attended my sister’s two big weddings, been involved in organising my daughters’ weddings and heard tales told by others I look back at our wedding and realise how lucky I was to have such an intimate wedding and reception, surrounded by just the people we wanted to share our day with rather than a hoard of people we were only acquainted with.

Where our wedding took very little planning bar choosing the date for the church, inviting our few guests and having the dresses made, many couples are nowadays forced into embarking on a gruelling planning marathon lasting for a couple of years or more. The upside of having to plan so far ahead means the loving pair and their families have time to build up their wedding funds since the average cost of a wedding is now close to an eye watering £20,000! That’s a big chunk towards a deposit on a house! Another upside is that out of necessity long engagements are back and with the extra time spent living together I wonder how many couples never reached the altar because they found they weren’t really compatible two or three years down the line. Although even with that realisation, some continue into marriage; my sister told me that, even when standing at the altar, both she and the groom felt they were getting married for all the wrong reasons and they had already been together for 11 years. They separated not long after the wedding. On the other hand, Paul and I were married just fourteen weeks after our first meeting and have been together for 47 years.

Before setting the date the happy couple have to decide how many guests they want to invite. Decisions, decisions….who goes on the guest list and who doesn’t make the cut? This is one area where I have witnessed the most soul searching and where a lot of “differences of opinion” happen. Close family only or extended family? The former is easy but when it comes to the latter who wants to tell Great Aunt Winnie; who you’ve only ever met once in your life when you were about 4 years old; that she’s not invited? Then you have to decide which friends to include without upsetting a host of others. Do you really want to invite the guy you chat to by the vending machine or the woman who serves you lunch just because they friended you on Facebook? If they’re not careful our couple could end up with 200-300 names on your guest list; many of whom will say they will come but then don’t and you’re left with the bill for feeding them. Armed with their guest list our couple can begin the search for their dream venue; which can be anything from a local hotel to an exotic beach to an Elvis chapel in Las Vegas; check that it can cater for the number of guests invited, it’s availability for the date of their choosing, and make alterations as necessary. All with the expectation that their invited guests will happily fork out to follow them to their destination. Many venues will provide a wedding planner to help plan everything from the ceremony to the reception but this can incur an additional cost. Paul and I decided to get married in the local church, which cost us £21 for the church, including the bells, plus a crate of Guinness for the organist and his assistant, who worked the organ bellows. The first two of our daughters to get married; Suzy and Lauren; also chose chapel and church weddings respectively and although they cost a little more than £21 they weren’t extortionate.

However they both had the obligatory wedding planner receptions at local hotels as did Kate, who also chose to hold the ceremony at the venue. Venue hire is currently around £8,000 and since it is now it is expected that those guests who shared the ceremony will be treated to the “Wedding Breakfast” of a three course meal followed in the evening by a buffet and dance; for those who expect to join in the celebrations with but weren’t invited to the ceremony; our couple must add  a menu option. With food and drinks packages now starting at around £65 per head, even catering for only 100 guests, including the wedding party, our now stressed couple are looking at a bill for in excess of £14,000. Paul and I had a very simple reception attended by only the close family and friends present at the wedding ceremony. It was held on the lawn of our house with a buffet tea of home cooked food and a home made wedding cake. The glassware was hired from the local brewery along with a drinks package on a pay or return basis by my grandfather; who enjoyed sampling and choosing the ales; at a cost of £12 for the lot. My sister, on the other hand, had two large affairs, the second one taking up two full floors of a small restaurant! The problem with the grand reception is that because one half of the guests don’t know the other half they split into little enclaves who don’t mingle; or a large proportion of them are outside smoking; so our very weary couple spends the whole time politely circulating between each group to make sure no one feels left out. The evening package not only includes the buffet but also the services of a second rate DJ playing a dismal playlist that no one dances to except children and drunken grannies who take to the floor every time “Dancing Queen” comes around!

Then there are the bridesmaids; should she choose family, friends or a mix of both? And what about pageboys? In fear of insulting anyone many end up with half a dozen or more attendants. Then she has to choose her maid of honour; sister or best friend? Which one will give her the most support? No matter what her choice is, it won’t be right. Meanwhile the groom has already chosen his best man and sorted their attire. For all the weddings in this family we have stuck to family, although this has often meant having the aforementioned large contingent of bridesmaids and pageboys.

Once the date, venue, guest list and bridesmaids have been settled upon it is time to choose the wedding dress. Little did she realise there would be so many “advisors” and “experts” to inundate her with all the latest ideas and trends they’ve found on TikTok. I have known friends and colleagues who have paid in excess of £2,000 for their dress, the current average is supposedly around £1,500. I have also known people who have bought their dress from a charity shop for £20 and looked just as fabulous and one resourceful bride who bought her dress from China because it was the cheapest option. Unfortunately, when it arrived it would just about fit a 10 year old! Neither myself nor my daughters have paid anywhere near the former amount. For me it was a simple choice. After a day round the few bridal shops Nottingham had to offer it was clear that nowhere sold wedding dresses in children’s sizes, the nearest I was offered was a communion dress! Thanks to some very generous ladies who worked in a local lace factory; whose children were in my mother’s class at school; my mother was able to make me a wonderful confection of frothy chiffon and Nottingham lace. Suzy’s dress, also made by my mother was a beautiful silk creation made with fabric bought in London’s Upton Park and cost around £150, including the fee to the corset maker. She nearly didn’t get it though when I left the fabric in a shop in Covent Garden! Lauren wanted to go alternative with a black, gothic dress. However, on a visit to London we met my mother and trekked round a few bridal outlets along Oxford Street so she could get some ideas. She spotted a dress in House of Fraser which could easily be adapted to have a more gothic look. The assistant encouraged her to try it on with the addition of a veil and shoes. She came out of the fitting room, saw herself in the mirror, did a swooshing twirl and exclaimed that she looked like a princess! Not bad going for a girl who was going to be a truck driver. That evening she asked if my mother would be offended if she opted to buy the dress she’d tried on instead of her making it. I think my mother was actually quite relieved not to be making yet another wedding dress. At that time it was also relatively cheap at £700 including all alterations and fittings. Kate originally wanted to wear my wedding dress but, even though she was petite, it was still too small so she ended up buying a gorgeous ivory lace gown which was as close as she could get and at £900 she was still under the average for the time. It was the addition of a factory’s worth of Swarovski that bumped up the overall price!

So, now the bride has her dress it’s time to work on the bridesmaids. For those who have decided on a troop of bridesmaids this can be a difficult task. What colour theme should she go for and will it suit all the bridesmaids. I got married in August so my three young bridesmaids had summery, pale coral coloured chiffon dresses. My daughters went for burgundy, blue and brown respectively. And what style? As with colour this is difficult since what suits one person makes another look like she’s wearing a sack; as my granddaughter complained about her dress. Who is paying? Another issue my granddaughter complained about as she had to fork out quite a bit for an ill fitting dress which she will never wear again. At least any pageboy suits should be easier unless you want something outlandish. But we must remember, it is the bride’s day.

Then there are the myriad of sundry arrangements which are necessary to their big day. Transportation to and from the venue needs to be arranged well in advance if you want something extra special. Bouquets, buttonholes and table decorations have to be discussed with a florist. Invitations to be printed, written and sent out with enough time for guests to respond. Photographer to find to shoot off hundreds of images which our couple will have to plough through and choose the ones they like best for printing. All for a price of course. And let’s not forget they have to find someone to make the cake. A friend of mine thought she’d got it all organised until the day before her wedding when, on going to pick up her cake, she was presented with a mess of a cake because the colours in the icing had all run together. She ended up with a bought cake hurriedly decorated by a friend. Since we were on a budget I was lucky in that the local greengrocer/florist made up my simple bouquet of yellow roses and the church was already decorated with flowers; my car was a brand new Mk3  Cortina driven by our next door neighbour; I have 15 photos of my wedding, bearing in mind the photographer, a friend of my mother’s, was using rolls of film so was far more selective in the photos he took; my cake was home made and I really don’t remember anything about the invitations. For the girls weddings I hand made the invitations, we got together and created the bouquets and table decorations and, since we all knew people with fancy cars, they were all lucky enough to have suitable transport at very little cost. Even Kate, whose guests were ferried between venues in a 52 seater coach at no cost to them. 

Now that things are progressing nicely our couple can look forward to the now obligatory hen/stag dos to come. When we got married hen/stag dos were fairly low key affairs. Ours was a joint “do” with the best man and his wife joining Paul and I for a meal and a wander round the pleasure gardens on Skegness seafront to pass the time on the evening before the wedding. And, against all superstition, I snuck out of my bedroom window and spent the night with Paul in the camper van, sneaking back in, bleary eyed at 6am. My daughters all paid for more organised hen nights, a buffet in a VIP area in a local nightclub, a meal out and, most notable, a dreadful party boat with an aging male stripper; my daughter was not amused when he waved his banana in her face! Added to the cost were the limousines, complete with champagne bars, to get us to the venues because how we get there is half the fun. But these experiences were tame and relatively inexpensive compared to my granddaughter’s generation. It’s not just a hen/stag night, it’s a mini holiday involving travelling to some party destination with a reputation for drunken debauchery, spending the nights and days trawling round bars and drinking as much alcohol as you can before returning home with a phone full of blurry photos of a bunch of strangers you met in one of the bars and unable to remember a thing. The sad thing is that whether or not they can afford the trip or even want to go, non of the hens/stags will decline for fear of upsetting the bride or groom because a grand hen/stag do is now expected. Many years ago I attended one such weekend in Newcastle. The bride had decided we were all to dress up as Disney characters so not only did I have to pay for my travel and hotel room but also for a fancy dress costume which has never seen the light of day since. The whole weekend, for me, was totally unenjoyable, as I miserably paraded from noisy pub to noisy pub dressed as Pocahontas, pretending to be having a good time, before ending up in the hotel bar being chatted up by a bunch of drunken stags. I was so glad when it was all over. My sister has a similar story involving a fancy dress treasure hunt. And if my granddaughter’s views on adult bouncy castles and ball pools in Manchester as a prime hen night destination are anything to go by thank goodness I never get invited anymore. If so many of us dislike this hen/stag night thing why on earth do we do it? Because the bride and groom  expect it and we must keep them happy.

With the big day fast approaching our couple run frantically through their checklist one more time. The venue is sorted, the dress is sorted, the bridesmaids are sorted, the cake is ordered, the guest list finalised, the seating plan done; my granddaughter’s friend actually forgot to put herself and the groom on the top table, or, one could surmise, any table at all; menu chosen, cars and photographer booked, everything paid for; now it’s time sit back, try not to panic and wonder what can possibly go wrong. In my experience, plenty! 

It is, however, the things that go awry on the day which provide the fondest memories. I really don’t remember much of the actual ceremony and the day seemed to be over in a flash but I do remember the silly things; my father in law just making it back to the house before I left because the best man had forgotten to pick up the rings, the police holding up the holiday traffic on the main A52 road into Skegness so we could get out of our side road, Charlie the deaf bell ringer who wouldn’t stop ringing the bells until Father Stephen came to the back of the church and shouted at him half a dozen times, me dragging my dad down the aisle in a near sprint, Paul forgetting what to do, having to fill in the register twice because someone signed it incorrectly, getting my dress caught on the organ bellows coming out of the vestry, the sight of Paul’s grandmother with her green and white check handbag and pink cloche hat and the best man’s trousers! It would be interesting to see what memories the girls have if their wedding days.

When all is said and done it doesn’t matter whether you feel you need to have all the glitz and glamour of the grandest wedding ever or choose to hold a small and intimate gathering of close family and friends, it is the promise you make to each other in front of those you love that really counts.