From This Day Forth

Once upon a time there was a young couple, and they had decided to get married. They borrowed books. They looked at websites. They looked at the local newspaper, and found that there was to be a wedding fair within the next few weeks. Ha, they said, we should go to that, and see what there is to see.

There was one problem. It was on a Sunday, and that Sunday was the day of the Italian Grand Prix. This was a problem. The solution was obvious, of course: one would go to the wedding fair, and the other would stay at home and watch the race. Easy peasy.

I mention this tale in order to highlight an irritation that a lot of couples will encounter. No, I don't mean the conflict between sports and weddings. (That said, it's probably a good idea to check whether there will be a major sporting fixture on your chosen day, particularly if either family is composed of lunatic football/cricket/golf fans, since it's annoying if people are rushing out to the nearest pub every five minutes to check the score.) What I'm talking about in the above scenario is the assumption that will invariably be made by somebody: that the one who spends their Sunday lunchtime discussing cake and photographs will be the bride, and the one sitting at home in front of the TV set will be the groom. Goodness only knows how civil partnerships mess with their minds.

In our case (yes, that was us above) it wasn't really a problem. Some of the people at the wedding fair looked a bit confused to see a groom wandering around on his own. Most of the bride's friends thought that she had arranged things very nicely. But sometimes you come across something like this, and you just want to throw the catalogue out of the window:

'On your special day, you want your groom to look perfect...' (Quoted from memory, because I do actually seem to have disposed of the offending publication, but I promise it really was something like that.)

Look at those assumptions. There are at least three in there, two of which I'll examine at a later date, but perhaps the most egregious is the one that not only is the bride doing all the work, she's also making all the choices.

This seems to be a hang-up from the days when the bride's mother organised the whole thing, and all the groom had to do was to turn up on the day, reasonably sober, and wearing his best suit, which he probably owned anyway. The days when the bride had nothing better to do than sit around waiting to get married, and wasn't working 9-5.30 to help pay for the wedding. Those days are gone. At least, they're gone for those of us who have to hire our best suits. The norm these days seems to be that the couple plans the wedding together, with more or less input from both sets of parents. So why, why, do companies persist in selling to only one half of the couple?

Heigh-ho. It's an irritation. I suppose all we can do is ignore the assumptions and do whatever it was we were going to do in the first place. Grooms: keep going to wedding fairs, and ignore the funny looks. There is no biological reason why you should not make decisions about cake, photographers, and yes, even formal suits, if you are so minded. Leave your bride at home. She'll thank you for it, if she's a fan of Sebastian Vettel.