This weekend friends of mine will be jetting off to an exotic island in the South Pacific. The cheapest flight they could find will include multiple changes and long waits at airports.
Despite this their stay on the sun-kissed idyllic island will last just 24 hours before they turn round and make the trip back to the UK.
Why the odd behavior why put your self through hours of travel and jet lag? Because they have been invited to a friend's wedding and felt unable to refuse and the funny thing is I'm pretty sure the bride and groom think they are doing their friends a huge favor by inviting them to their wedding.
No doubt they believe that all their guest are delighted to be part of their wonderful international extravaganza.
The truth is modern weddings have lost there way.The fact the average wedding now cost more than £20,000 is ridiculous and wrong, especially when you think of how many people on this planet struggle to survive on less then 50p a day.
The excessive cost is also a symptom of a deeper problem.For what all the taffeta in the world can not cover up is that the modern wedding has become far to much about the egos of the bride and groom.
These days its almost as if the happy couple are not just getting married- they are also directing some over the top Hollywood epic which they have cast themselves in the starring roles. Look at the couple who insist that everyone attended their wedding dressed in white from head to toe. Those that didnt have white suits and shoes handy would have had to pay out to get them. The couple then sashayed down the aisle in matching scarlet. Talk about look at me. It would be easy to laugh at this overblown vanity if it wasnt all such a huge waste of money.
Of course, its absolutely right that the bride and groom ought to feel special. After all this is the day when they look into each others eyes and promise to LOVE and CARE for each other for the rest of their lives, FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE, FOR RICHER,FOR POORER, IN SICKNESS and IN HEALTH
The appeal of my special day has now become an excuse to demand the best of everything from flowers to clothing to hairdressers to napkin rings.
To many couples want to sit in their Posh and Becks style thrones and be admired by the invited audience, is this what make the best wedding?
Or is it the simplest weddings that are the best, The wedding in a church all country flowers put together by a friend trestle tables laid out with food cooked by family and friends. A heartfelt exchange of vows in the local register office then a table in a crowded restaurant for dinner. What makes these wedding so special is the love the couples had for each other a love that spilled out to family a friends.
The essence of that love whether expressed in a sacred or secular way is the promise to put the interests of another before those of your own. Love is a movement away from the idea that everything in life is about you.
Which is why modern weddings are a travesty. For in becoming a great celebration of the ego,they are a threat to the very thing they are supposed to be about.
Just look for instance at the excruciating self obsessed tantrums shown on livings TV's Four wedding series where four brides get to compete with each rating the others weddings.
Some of the problem is the widespread influence of celebrity magazines, where the whole experience charade of show biz marriage is posed for cameras. Of course these staged set up make everything seem fake and unreal, even worse is they treat their guests like props. For ordinary couples wanting to recreate that feeling of being a celebrity for a day is not the right template for a celebration of true love.
There is hope however as I feel people are tiring of the modern obsession with ostentatious weddings, we,ve had enough of this triumph over style.
Marriage is at the heart of a stable society It provides a secure environment for bringing up children and its conducive to our long term happiness.
Yes we need to celebrate and why not have a fantastic party to mark the beginning of your married life?
The images makers in the wedding business and thats to often what it has become want to persuade you that a simple wedding is cut price second class bargain bucker affair. In truth they don't like simple weddings because they don't ring up the cash registers
So they ramp up expectations with ever more glamorous proposals, investing the wedding with false hope and envious fantasies. These expectations can so impossibly high its no wonder so many weddings are desperately tense affairs in which superficial smiles mask blazing rows erupting off stage.
The happiest weddings are the ones where who give more weight to the promises being made to each other than they do to the table decorations or gift list.
Simple wedding are by far the most beautiful . For when we do away with the expensive and distracting rubbish, we are better able to see the love two people have for one another.
This LOVE is the most beautiful thing in the world.
taken from an article by Giles Fraser St Pauls London
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