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Wedding TV

A bride and groom
  • Posted at 11:12am
  • 31 October 2007
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT
  • 5 comments

Yes, a channel devoted to getting married. A chance for singletons to blub into their kleenex about how they've been left on the shelf, a chance for engaged couples to be enticed into spending even more of their parents' cash on essentials such as "ring cushions" or "memory boxes" and a chance for those who are already married to think, “Yeah, I remember the hopes, the dreams, the excitement. No, I won't walk the dog, it's your turn – have you farted? God, my mum warned me about you.” And so on.

The biggest problem with Wedding TV is avoiding all the inevitable reality shows where the best man has to test-drive his speech in front of some disapproving Carmelite nuns, or the groom has to undertake a series of challenges in an attempt to avoid the booby prize of being set on fire and shot from a cannon on his stag night. Maybe that's my own personal prejudice, perhaps you love that stuff. Someone has to.

I ended up watching Inside Weddings, which is billed as an "enchanting series" offering hints and tips on how to make the most of your big day. This particular episode chose to focus on those people who are being married for the second time. "The triumph of hope over experience" was the ill-chosen phrase that flashed up on the screen. It may as well have read "You idiot". Anyway, we saw a series of interviews, mainly with people who had either just had a colossal wedding, or were in the midst of arranging a colossal wedding. "Oh, we're going to have an enormous wedding, we'll be arriving at our clifftop ceremony on jetpacks, and the congregation will all be dressed as Imperial Stormtroopers but with whirring Catherine wheels nailed to their heads, and a choir from a nearby orphanage will cry real tears as they sing a medley of Puccini arias while the Red Arrows do a fly-past in their Big Vixen formation." This is the kind of thing that those blinded by love start to think is perfectly normal.

Frightening amounts of money are blown on these 12-hour periods of celebration. Whole industries depend on being able to convince us that a 16-tier wedding cake is a fantastic idea. This mafia see us coming a mile off with our moistened eyes and our engagement rings, and gently steer us towards a range of terrifyingly indulgent options, specially designed to create what might, with a bit of luck, be a reasonably happy day.

One woman was interviewed at length about her plans, and she had a series of questions of etiquette and procedure which were tackled earnestly by a wedding expert. We'd quite like to serve fish at the reception, but is this appropriate? How many flower girls should I have – and do I need an equal number of pageboys? How much time should elapse before I consider writing thank you letters? For crying out loud, woman, do what you WANT.

I've never been to a bad wedding, regardless of how much money was spent. My own was the cheapest, though. It cost 80 quid - £60 to Brixton registry office, free hire of a pub, and £20 to a friend's band towards their petrol. And what a great day it was. We divorced about six years later, but I don't think that was down to the amount of money we spent. H’m. Or maybe the wedding mafia is more powerful than I thought.

Wedding TV is on Sky 277.

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Comments

  • Posted on 24 February 2009
  • at 9:40pm
  • by lynn strachan

I watched wedding breakfast tv on 23/2/09 which was actually a repeat and at the end of one of the real wedding videos there was the most beautiful song playing all the way through it. All I know is that the words 'breath into you' any clues please.

  • Posted on 31 October 2007
  • at 8:06pm
  • by marysiak

My brothers wedding was fairly simple - registrar in a hotel, meal for 20 in the hotel, party for everyone else after. It was great.

  • Posted on 31 October 2007
  • at 7:44pm
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT

Rob, the memory box is the most dangerous thing. It's just a box. A really expensive cardboard box, covered in posh paper. I tell you what, I'll make you a memory box for £89.99. Seriously, it's a bargain. No, no need to thank me.

  • Posted on 31 October 2007
  • at 2:44pm
  • by littlerayofsunshine

Aw, many congrats, robsoft! Such happy news

  • Posted on 31 October 2007
  • at 1:06pm
  • by robsoft

Another one for us to avoid, then - thanks for the heads-up.

We got engaged LAST January (in New York) and eventually set the date for NEXT October - largely for financial and organisational concerns (who knew that churches could be fully booked a year in advance?).

As we've just passed the 'only 1 year to go' mark, you might imagine how much horror this stuff fills me with. My life is full of tedium regarding the minutiae of a big day that is still around 355 days away. Most of the people I know (either by relation or by choice) got married with just a few months' notice.

I can just picture the sort of people you'll find on this channel - I've had a lot of exposure to this kind of thing already. There's a whole class of people (in Cheshire at least) who seem to exist solely for putting these ideas into the minds of impressionable young (ahem) bride-to-be's.... 'Ring cushions' - crivvens, if Nic heard that one, it'd be another thing to consider. 'Should we have a ring cushion? Should we have a ring cushion each perhaps ? Should the ring cushions be colour coordinated? Should we have the ring cushions monogrammed? Could we change your middle initial, it's quite unfortunate when you look at it on the cushion...?' etc etc.

But I love her dearly and really all of this tedium, expense and blatant racketeering will be a small price to pay in return for being able to say, for the rest of my life, that she had her dream wedding-day. :-)

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