The joy of small weddings

We had been planning to hold our very belated New Year’s party in our garden in Edinburgh in a few weeks, with June 26 pencilled in as the first Saturday following ‘freedom’ day on June 21.

The idea was to invite 50 people and then pretend it was a wedding reception as these are currently the only gatherings, apart from funerals, that will permit such numbers (under Scottish rules). The celebration, however, is looking increasingly doubtful. As is our French holiday in July, as the dithering over total unlocking continues across the UK.

In Scotland, we are not even out of tiered restrictions, which have been reimposed across the Central Belt as some kind of punishment by Nicola Sturgeon after too many scenes of public merriment over the Bank Holiday.

But back to weddings, small and/or secret ones. When we do eventually stage our ‘reception’ we have two options. Either we can borrow the young couple in our street who recently got married in the Hebrides within the then 12-person limit, and say the ‘do’ is in their honour. They have agreed to supply their marriage certificate if necessary.

Or, my husband and I can renew our own wedding vows, an event which would presumably justify the same number of guests as the real thing. If we opt for the latter, which does seem rather drastic just to get 50 friends together (not to mention overly sentimental at our age), we would be more than quadrupling the size of our ‘big’ day 20 or so years ago.

Our very modest nuptials were conceived and executed in the space of three weeks in an era of elaborately pre-planned and extravagant functions, but now it seems we were ahead of our time. We also kept ours a closely guarded secret, like Boris and Carrie, not to out-fox the press but because we could only fit our nearest and dearest into the cramped registry office.

The Prime Minister, it has been suggested, preferred to wed small now, with the 30 guests allowed in England, rather than go huge post-Covid because it avoided potential family conflicts. Our situation wasn’t half as complicated – whose is – but there was an element of wanting to keep it simple.

The Johnsons have promised their wider circle a proper party next year, whereas we did that bit on the same evening, with the guests only realising it wasn’t a housewarming when they saw my whitish dress and the groom’s thistle buttonhole.

In the current limbo between the end of lockdown and the re-starting of life, as we used to know it, the mini wedding serves many purposes. Apart from the obvious – tying the knot at last, following pandemic postponements – there is the selflessness of going through with it now, instead of delaying further, to give your family and friends respite from months of boredom.

And, of course, the smaller wedding saves a lot of money, another factor no doubt in the PM’s decision and definitely in mine.

Whether they will catch on though, and outlast these straitened times, remains to be seen. It would not be a bad thing if the competitive consumption of the pre-Covid mega bash were replaced by something more spontaneous.

Except for those who work in the wedding business and depend on lavish affairs for their living. An entertainer who specialises in weddings tweeted recently that he had just done his first gig in 18 months. Pushing back June 21, even for two weeks, would, he said, “probably mean the difference between having the career I’ve been working on for 30 years or losing everything”.

There is little sign of frugality in the other realms of hospitality that have reopened, and the easing of restraints has been met with, well, an easing of restraint. For all the talk of people being permanently altered by the pandemic, human nature looks likely to revert to type, quite possibly in the wedding world too.

Some brides have their sights on a ‘sequel wedding’, a reprise with all the trimmings, following a low-key, even virtual, legal bonding during lockdown.

An American newlywed told the New York Times that her proposed sequel, in a church, was not just an outing for her frock but was about “all the people who have helped us become who we are, who will support us in the future”.

Each couple to their own. From personal experience, I offer this: with a small, and secret, wedding there is no stress, none at all, and no nerves on the day. There are also no presents – we still don’t have any vases and only the one toaster. 

And there is no control over the guests at the ‘after party’. We had gate-crashers and plus one’s (one a future cabinet minister) that our friends brought along, as you do for a party, but never a wedding. 

On balance, it was indeed small but perfect, the way to go – and I don’t just make this argument because I have two, as yet unmarried, daughters.