The stress and exorbitant expense of weddings makes couple feel they are prize specimens at Crufts, rather than two human beings making solemn vows, says Phoebe Arslanagić-Little
July has begun and we are in the thick of wedding season. For couples, the sting of discovering how much a photographer costs and decisions about napkin colours are in the past: all that is left is to enjoy the day. My own approach to wedding planning was to do the fun bits first. I gamely organised cake tasting with well over a year to spare, but panics about the less delicious elements of administration, such as organising ice delivery, took place in the month before.
And there certainly is a lot of undelicious wedding administration for couples to wade through. Most of us cannot afford wedding planners yet are also in the curious position of being inexperienced at and unsuited to organising an event for 80-100 people that must simultaneously be a party, a solemn occasion, a dinner, and also the best time you’ve ever had. My and my husband’s respective careers – as policeman and think tanker – simply hadn’t prepared us and I suspect most people feel the same way.
The stress aside, there is also the sheer expense to consider. Once again, the costs of the average UK wedding has ticked up, this time to over £20,000. In fact, the average wedding spend increased in nearly every category between 2022 and 2023. The average cost of a London wedding is an eye-watering £36,778. Engaged couples may be interested to know that a Tuesday in January appears to be the cheapest day to get married.
As an expectant future guest, I’m delighted to hear engaged friends discussing open cocktail bars. Yet I know how easy it is to spend more money than you had intended on that single special day and the figures prove it.
But it’s not just the exorbitant expense, I believe that the stress of weddings causes couples to delay or forgo marriage.
Especially since the pandemic, trend-watchers and commentators have instead been predicting the rise of micro-weddings with 20-50 guests; micro-micro-weddings with less than 10 guests and elopements with no guests at all! Venues offer ‘elopement packages’ promising a “romantic, hassle-free day” and offering a beautiful location, a room for the night, and witnesses. There is also the simple option of booking a You Plus Two ceremony at your local register office: only the couple and two witnesses need attend.
On the one hand, if such ceremonies do become more popular – and I am yet to see data on that – it would serve as a well-deserved rebuke to a wedding industry and culture that makes couples feel as if they are prize dogs at Crufts, rather than two human beings making solemn vows.
On the other, part of the great power of a wedding with friends and family in attendance is that they really do become participants. When you promise to become a wife or husband, the weight and seriousness of the commitment comes partly through the recognition of the guests. They are not merely there to have a good time – they are all active witnesses. A marriage is not only a private promise, but a public fact.
Couples should not be priced out of this option and into an elopement because they cannot afford a catered three-course meal for 80 people. After all, we already have a ‘marriage gap’, with wealthier middle-class couples considerably more likely to be married than those on lower incomes.
The tremendous excitement we and interested businesses seek to cultivate around weddings – gushing over flowers that will cost £1,000, brushing over the fact that the perfect dress costs over £3,000 – is superficially pro-marriage. But in fact, it is an enemy that stands against the institution.
All of us who enjoyed our own weddings and the marriages they have led to and who want to see more, not fewer, people get married, must collectively agree to work harder to reduce the pressure on couples.
Let us be openly delighted to attend a BYOB reception in a park and even offer to pick up a few disposable barbecues on the way. Let us attend a ceremony and not expect a meal afterwards, but be more than content with a glass of wine and a few canapés. Let us especially not take it personally if we are not invited. It is beholden on all of us to loosen the white silk garotte around couples’ necks.
Phoebe Arslanagić-Little is a columnist at City A.M. and head of the New Deal for Parents at Onward