Brides!  Are you planning a wedding with a nice dress, good food, and general fun and good times?  You are?!  STOP!  What do you think you’re doing?!  A big wedding is just selfish and vain and will inevitably DOOOOOOOOM your marriage!!!

Or at least, that’s the impression I got from this BBC article.  Specifically, the opinion of Rev Giles Fraser (Canon Chancellor of St. Paul’s Cathedral), who believes that modern weddings are nothing but a narcissistic show in which “the shoes, the dress, the flowers…” take priority over the actual ceremony.  He claims that committing yourself to your partner for life is lost amid the idea of being “princess for a day”.  He believes that extravagant weddings are “a threat to the marriage itself” and that naturally it’s all the media’s fault.

This is complete and utter bollocks.  Just once I would like to read an opinion piece that doesn’t scream BLAME THE MEDIA!  Can we please just assume that we are not feeble-minded sheep that want things just because [insert celebrity here] has them; can we instead assume that we want things because we like them?  And I can’t help but notice that statements like “princess for a day” means he considers this shocking affront to marriage as totally the bride’s fault.  Dammit ladies, how dare you buy pretty dresses!  As for the wedding being a threat to the marriage, I completely disagree.  I’d even go so far as to say the wedding has no bearing on the marriage- just like a great NYE party doesn’t automatically mean you’ll have a wonderful year.  Case in point: my aunt got married in a small civil ceremony at a local college, followed by dinner and drinks at my grandparents’ house.  It had a big emphasis on “look how much we love each other” and no emphasis at all on “look how much money we have”.  Four years later, and it’s not looking good, to put it mildly.  A small and understated wedding doesn’t guarantee a happy marriage any more than an extravagant celebration dooms the union forever.

Author and clinical psycologist Dr Oliver James agreed with Rev Fraser, saying “Women now place a higher premium on love… They are more prone to wanting to signify their importance to others through grand material displays.  Classic keeping up with the Joneses.”  He cited a study by the Institute for American Values (which states that in 1960, 40% of women said they’d willingly marry without love- a number that fell to just 15% in the late 1980s) as being “a tragedy”, because it was during this period that divorce rates started to rise. It’s not the media’s fault though, just our “shallow, materialistic culture”.

OUCH is all I have to say to the first statement.  I’ll give him props though, he didn’t imply the sexism like the good reverend, nuh-uh, he went and laid it all out there.  Kudos.  Dr James, just because you had that one girlfriend who turned out to be a golddigger doesn’t mean we’re all selfish money-grabbers, OK?  (Disclaimer: He may not have had the golddigging girlfriend, I’m just making an assuption based on his barely-concealed bitterness.  Bet I’m right though.)  Also, “shallow, materialistic culture”?  I’m not sure what planet he’s living on, but the one I inhabit still has a little bit of a recession going on- I’d be willing to bet that there are more DIY/CIY guides for brides now than there were 10 years ago.  We like nice things, especially at our weddings, but we make and pay for these things ourselves thank-you-very-much.  Then again, his views on the IAV study would seem to imply that marrying for love = bad because women spend far too much money on love even though it will inevitably end in divorce.  Or something.  Frankly, I’m beginning to doubt his credibility, not to mention his sanity.

Maybe I’m reading a bit too much into this, but it seems like the dress (and, by extension, the bride) has been held up as the symbol that we brides want it all our way, when actually it’s the polar opposite.  After compromising with our partners on the venue, the invitations, the guest list, etc. etc., the dress is the one thing that is completely ours to decide.  We pick the dress knowing that its sole purpose is to make us look and feel great, and we love it for that!  Although why the groom’s suit isn’t similarly regarded as a symbol of wedding decadence is beyond me.

Catherine Westwood (editor of Wedding magazine and no relation to Vivienne) provided a much-needed voice of reason, saying that “Actually, most people see it as a celebration.  If the celebration is throwing a big party and having that public declaration of love, then I think it should be treated that way.  [Rev Fraser] needs to modernise a bit and be delighted that people still want to marry.”  This woman is my new favourite person!