Marriage is corny and pointless – but we’re doing it anyway

The one question the priest did not ask me, thank goodness, was why I wanted to get married.

That might have held up the enterprise indefinitely, and we are already so far behind with this attempted wedding of ours that I dare not risk another hold-up. Since serving the notice at Cork Registry Office, it’s a year down the line nearly and the builder boyfriend and I are no nearer to saying: ‘I do.’

I’m nearer to saying: ‘I really can’t be bothered.’ Or: ‘If anything happens to me just bury me in the garden and don’t tell anyone I’m dead. That way you’ll keep the house with no questions asked, and I doubt anyone will notice.’

Because the main reason I want to get married is through a sense of responsibility to the dear BB, who needs to know it will all be fine if I get run over by the proverbial bus.

Yes, I tried to get a will done when we moved to West Cork. Forget it. There isn’t a single solicitor in Ireland with any availability to do a will for the next 50 years. They’re snowed under with probate. They don’t even answer the phone.

Our only option is to get married, despite all my misgivings about how corny and pointless marriage is.

We served the notice and produced umpteen bits of paper. We sent off for the original long-form copies of our birth certificates and all that jazz. But the BB did not have an Irish social security number. And when he tried to get one, it turned out that because I own the house and he doesn’t have his name on any of the bills, he could only have one linked to our address, as I do… if he and I were married.