Fairytale weddings revive the wrong traditions

12 April 2012

The gasp in the church was audible. It broke the fixed wedding day smiles that had been glued Botox-like to guests' faces. We were on the vows, with the vicar spieling off the loving and honouring parts. It was verb number three that shocked: obey.

Yes, in 2010, a woman was choosing to enter holy matrimony with a word more closely associated with Daleks than with modern relationships.

But it was just an extreme example of a trend.

The traditional wedding, with every old-fashioned gender stereotype, has made a comeback. Only this time, it is a bloated, Disney princess dress-clad version of its former self.

I am a fan of marriage. Not just a moderate admirer either but a groupie. One day, if some poor man will agree, I want to be half of that septuagenarian couple holding hands in the street.

But what I can't understand are weddings. Or rather, why so many are now a mix of misogyny and materialism: a flowers and froth fest with feminism forgotten.

There it is in ivory Vera Wang and a dapper suit smiling in The Times on a Saturday on the "marriages and engagements" page. And again, in newsagents, in the 15 bridal magazines on the shelves.

The Big Day is once again a Boys' Day. Take the speeches at three of the last four weddings I have been to: father, groom and best man. The message? If you don't have a Y chromosome, don't open your mouth.

Then there's the walk down the aisle, where Daddy generously donates a daughter to another man. Mum is supposed just to look on, regretting her decision to wear mascara.

An acquaintance who got married earlier this year didn't even know where she was going for her honeymoon until she arrived at the airport because His Nibs had chosen for her. That's not romantic, it's dictatorial. And how did she get a rock on her finger in the first place? Hubbie OK-ed it with her father before asking her — the most archaic tradition of them all. Even in Pride and Prejudice, Darcy didn't seek paternal permission until after the proposal.

If I were a Seventies feminist watching a daughter get married today, my bawling wouldn't be mother-of-the-bride tears. I would be crying because most of the sexist conventions we thought that we had destroyed have been welcomed back to the wedding day.

And for what? To line cash-hungry party-planners' pockets. A fairytale wedding with all the trimmings, they say, is what every woman has always dreamed about. Not this woman.

In "austerity Britain", how about a return to more intimate ceremonies? Ones without feather fascinators, favours and frump-fest bridesmaid dresses from Debenhams. Weddings focused on the couple that don't cost more than a kidney on the black market.

Then the bride and groom can laugh when something goes wrong, rather than thinking, "I spent a fortune, gave up seeing my friends for months and shed two stone for this day", before weeping into their four-tier fruit cake.

A wedding is merely a means to an end. If I ever say "I do", it won't be about the "Big Day" but a lifetime of them. And that means equality, plus some economic restraint. For as a friend whispered to me recently at a sexist extravanganza: "The bigger the wedding, the earlier the divorce".

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