Express & Star

If marriage is an institution then I am quite convinced that those who decide to get hitched belong in one, writes blogger Dan Wainwright.

The first of my old friends from school tied the knot last week with his university sweetheart.

It was a lovely civil ceremony in an old mansion on the Isle of Wight.

Being secular all references to the man upstairs had to be axed from the service with all musical choices vetted by the registrars in order to prevent God from getting the wrong idea and assuming He was invited.

We’d all have been terribly embarrassed if He’d shown up, not knowing whether to repent all our sins or simply try and squeeze Him on table five next to the groom’s old uni housemates and the bride’s second cousin thrice removed.

The organisation that goes into such an event has left me determined to break with tradition should the happiest day of my life ever befall me, although if I start to think about how I draw a complete blank.

Throughout the joyous event, at every one of its kind I have ever attended, man and wife spend all their time apart, talking to relatives and their offspring whom they hardly ever see, the bride constantly hitching up her train to avoid the trail of spilled lager on the dance floor.

A mobile disco and a buffet is just not the way I could envisage starting the rest of my life with someone.

No matter how expensive or elaborate the do, that’s what it always comes down to.

And yet as Brits we would not have it any other way.

I’ll bet the mere suggestion of upping sticks and eloping never crosses the minds of all but the most deliberately subversive people, the sort who are too embarrassing to invite to the ceremony but explode onto the scene as YMCA is played at the reception.

There is something so charming about the British wedding, it’s as though those annoying and tedious bits provide the sort of familiarity we need to just settle into things, chat and drink so we can all dance like idiots before we collapse out of a taxi, hungry for a kebab despite all the chicken goujons we forced down.

If marriage is a tradition then I suppose it’s only fitting it be celebrated as one – traditionally.

Agree with Dan? Post your comments below.