My guilty pleasure is to waste a whole afternoon watching serial episodes of ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ on television.
Its premise is simple. An American bridal salon opens its doors to brides of all ages, shapes and sizes. Each arrives to choose her gown with a posse of opinionated friends and relatives in tow. Dress after dress is modelled and rejected (often vociferously,) until she appears in ‘the one’. Cue tearful bride, weeping mother, damp-eyed acolytes, an hysterical hugfest and a smirk of satisfaction from the salon staff, since they stock nothing you’d be caught dead in under $2000 dollars. The average spend is $3500 and purchases up to $25,000 are not unusual.
The programme format has crossed the Atlantic to Britain, fronted by David Emmanuel, designer of Princess Diana’s big pouffy creased disaster of a wedding dress, but the same ethos pertains – as do the prices.
I have a drawerful of wedding photographs the earliest of which is 1926. Here’s my mother in a gold satin flapper dress, a bridal wreath rammed down over her eyebrows. Here’s a bouffant Fifties cousin, her bridesmaids like a row of cocktail parasols; a Sixties friend channelling Jackie Kennedy elegance. In the Seventies it was romantic-hippy Laura Ashley – and here am I in 1980 in silvery mushroom Grecian drapery and a Vidal Sassoon bob – all of us looking dated and faintly comical. Now it’s all strapless corset bodices and big skirts, or strapless sinuous Coke-bottle curves.
Once weddings were relatively modest affairs – a morning ceremony, a wedding breakfast and the immediate exit of the newlyweds to spend their honeymoon touring Ireland, or, if better off, ‘on the continent’.
Incrementally, weddings have morphed into a kind of nuptial nightmare, extending over a couple of days, taking months to arrange and costing thousands, with an ever-lengthening list of ‘must-haves’ and an ever diminishing perspective on the point of it all, namely, two people who love each other and want to be together. Napoleon invaded Russia with marginally less planning.
Time, advertising and the excesses of celebrities have spawned a lucrative industry with its own extravagant ethos to which all must subscribe. It has brought into being ‘Bridezilla’ – a usually sensible girl who loses the run of herself when it comes to organising her wedding, because every little thing must be perfect – venue, invitations, flowers, favours, fireworks, an architectural marvel of a cake, photographer, video, wine reception, meal menu, evening reception, disco, supper, overnight accommodation, ceremony gown, reception gown, bridesmaids, groomsmen, child attendants, gifts for same, transport, honeymoon travel and bookings. Many of these tasks could be delegated but Bridezilla is a control freak. “It’s the BRIDE’s day” is the general consensus – as if the groom is merely a necessary accessory. Meanwhile the cost escalates because the Princess Bride must meet perceived public expectation, even though the price of it would pay for a fully-fitted kitchen, including white goods.
Wedding etiquette has changed. Once, a strong sense of obligation to family ensured the presence of distant cousins and ancient aunts brought out of cold storage and genuine friends having to be excluded to keep numbers down. Now it’s 200 ‘close friends’ of the betrothed pair and only immediate family. And there’s a vast difference between inviting the neighbours round to the bride’s freshly decorated family home for tea and inspection of the presents, and a hen party.
Guests pay a stiff price for being bosom buddies of the bride or groom. The ‘hen’ or ‘stag’ do is likely to be a weekend-long blast in some remote or exotic location. I’ve had the misfortune to fly with both parties who’ve been in the airport bar since 7:30 am. Does the wedding present list strike one as a kind of emotional calculator of just how dear a friend one is of the couple? And blingy cocktail wear seems to be de rigeur for weddings nowadays, even in church. Hey-ho…
They say “if you wait to get married till you can afford to get married, you’ll never get married”. How very true……
