I have a suggestion for an area of public life where cuts in spending are in urgent need and would, I believe, be widely welcomed: weddings. Over the last several years the cost of the average wedding has ballooned to about £20,000. And as a recent survey showed: with the expectation of ever more expensive presents, the need for new clothes, hotel bills and the like, the cost of simply attending a wedding is now well over £500.
But it isn’t just about the money. For the problem with the modern wedding is that it’s too often a glitzy stage-set overly concerned with the shoes, the flowers, the napkin rings and performing to the cameras. I’m delighted for Chelsea Clinton and her new husband Mark. But judging by some press reports, the most important thing about the wedding was her two Vera Wang dresses. And yes, I blame the media here, not the happy couple. For the pervasive influence of the media on the look and feel of weddings – not least those weddings that are featured in celebrity magazines – has encouraged an atmosphere of narcissism and self-promotion to work its way into the very fabric of the modern wedding celebration….
“And yes, I blame the media here, not the happy couple.”
So it’s the media’s fault the Clintons spent $2 million on the wedding?
He’s right about the glitzy emptiness of many modern weddings, but he’s unable to pinpoint the real reason – whether because he won’t allow himself to see it (he’s one of the BBC’s pet Liberal Vicars) or can’t say it on air for fear of offending people: that for the enormous majority of couples, the wedding is merely a Big Party with lots of expensive presents followed by a holiday in an exotic location. These couples have been living together for years in most cases.
The only method to make a wedding meaningful is if it is truly a rite of passage, marking (or at least pretending to mark: the tribute vice pays to virtue) both sexual initiation and the change from two individuals living separate lives to one pair sharing their life. In other words, the only way to make a wedding meaningful is for there to be a meaning. These days, for most people, there isn’t. Destroying chastity* has also destroyed weddings.
*Have you noticed how wedding dresses are these days almost invariably low-cut, strapless and backless affairs which are designed to show off the bride’s secondary sexual characteristics? They look very strange in white, especially when the bride sticks to the traditional veil. But it makes sense symbolically: the bride is no longer declaring herself to be a virgin but announcing that she can satisfy her ‘partner’ sexually to such an extent that he’s agreed to make vows…at least until they decide to divorce.
The BBC’s Pet Liberal Vicar complains that weddings are ‘…too often a glitzy stage set-up…performing to the cameras.’
Kettle to Pot: call home!
http://www.london.anglican.org/NewsShow_12382
Canon Fraser’s liberalism has little to do with the subject. He has raised the matter appropriately and all “parties” share blame for what has developed. We’ve allowed “marriage directors” pivotal roles in rehearsals, stressed that it is what the couple desires that matters, “After all it is their day”, hoping that perhaps they may return to church somewhen! The legal position of the CofE makes imposing some form of discipline on persons with little or no contact with the church, other than residing in a parish. In America we may and should do a better job of preparation, setting rules about dress and decorum and requiring conformity to the Prayer Book rite.